Other World

Yes, it’s that time again, time to upgrade to the latest and greatest version of Fedora. A co-worker brought in the Fedora 11 DVD. I don’t like doing upgrades on my work box on company time (especially since I’m pushing by privileges by using Fedora at work), so brought the DVD home and started on the laptop here first. I was hoping for a quick install and then head over to work on my night off last night to do that one as well. That didn’t happen for multiple reasons.

I still don’t trust the built-in upgrader, so once again we backed everything up and went for a clean install. I started it around 8pm and didn’t finish the main install until about 2am. Now, part of that is that I found a ton of new packages that I want to play with, so the install took a lot longer than normal (little sister Brittany will be jealous to know Stellarium was one of those available in the default install). I would still like to see that sped up. However, I may also be running up against hardware issues. I think this laptop is now almost 6 years old. But aside from the install, with Fedora she runs pretty quick. I don’t care how great Windows 7 is (we’re not even going to talk about it predecessor) it will never run smoothly on this machine.

As usual, things just keep getting better and better. The only problem I’ve had so far was a popup warning about a lock on NFS. I think that was due to me transferring all my files (including the hidden ones) to this machine. But after a restart that too is gone. And all the Fedora 10 guides for getting your favourite extras worked just fine for 11. As usual I spent too much time last night playing with it.

Now I know Linux still isn’t for everyone, so for all you lucky son-of a-guns still on Windows, this is my tribute to you:

Software installation in Linux is difficult

Things are a bit slow at work so I’ve been messing with some of the scripts that the company offers easy installs for.  I’m increasingly disappointed with the ease of using Drupal. But Zenphoto is another matter. I played with it once a few months ago. I’ve always liked the clean look of it, but didn’t spend much time with it before due to the difficulty in just finding the admin login. My latest round with it has been much more promising.

First, for those having trouble the admin login is at http://domain.com/zenphoto/zp-core/ where domain.com is your domain, and zenphoto is changed to the folder you did the install on. In my case it’s http://prettyprettylights.com/art/zp-core/.

After login in the first thing we want to do is add some pictures. so we click on the upload tab. If we have an existing album we select it from the “Upload to” drop-down. If we don’t, then we type a new abum name in the field. Now for the best part. Click the box below it that says “Select Files.” Navigate to the folder with your pictures and select as many as you want. I’m sure there’s an upload limit either imposed by your php.ini, your hosting company, maybe even Zenphoto itself, but that’s not mentioned and I happily uploaded four photos at once.

Once the upload completed I was taken to a screen where I could scroll through and adjust the display settings. I can add descriptions, custom data, adjust the thumbnail size, adjust the part of the thumbnail that displays, all from a fairly easy, intuitive interface.

One thing I wasn’t liking was the multiple gallery setup. This is a little funny because I would love this sort of feature in just about any other Script, from blogging to CMS systems. But for Zenphoto I was at first content with the idea of doing a new install for every gallery I wanted. Then I came to my senses. It’s a great feature that just needs a little know-how, aka, friendly URLs. A little googling revealed that it was possible, but the documentation was a bit outdated and I hit a few road-blocks.

So, to get Friendly URLs working on Zenphoto 1.2.5:

• Go to the folder where you did the install on your web host.
• Rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess.
• Open .htaccess so that you can make changes.
• Find the line that says “#### !!! Change this to the web path (eg: http://www.yourwebsite.com/photos –> /photos) !!!”
• Below that change it to the folder where you did the install, include a / at the beginning (ex. /art)
• Save the changes.
• Log into your Zenphoto admin area.
• Click on the Options Tab.
• Click on General.
• In URL Options check mod_rewrite.
• Test. Hopefully you won’t get a 404 error.

Since this discovery I may move this to a more generic images folder and see about using includes to plant the albums I want directly into my website where I want them. Part of the Zenphoto appeal is the clean interface on the default theme which should allow it to fit nicely into any standard theme. Maybe a few tweaks to the CSS to make fonts and margins a bit smaller. We’ll have to see how well that works out.

So I went to Barnes & Noble to look at some books on personal finance and buying a home. I learned several good things from a glance through some of the home books, including that I was glad I went to the book store before I went to the bank. This week I’ll submit a request for my credit score and look it over, make sure everything is kosher before approaching a bank about financing.

In addition I (as usual) broke down and purchased two books. The first is Women & Money by Suze Orman. The second is Crash Profits. I’ve started reading Orman’s book and one of the initial exercises is to write your own definition of a rich life.

I approached it by thinking about what I wanted to have accomplished by the end of my life. By the time I’ve died I hope I’ve read most of the classics and a great many modern books. I hope to have covered subjects on philosophy, politics, history, mathematics and sciences, and a good chunk of fiction, science fiction, and fantasy.

I hope to have built a family with someone. I hope to have been a parent to my children before a friend. And I hope to have put my spouse first and foremost in my life. I hope to raise my family in a nice home. Not necessarily nice because it was a big house in a superb neighbourhood, but because I was able to fix up a nice place and work hard in the community to create a good environment.

I hope to have taken plenty of time to play, both outdoors, and indoors. I hope I was creative and learned about how the world works. I hope to have built things, not necessarily world-changing things. Just little things that help me understand how things work.

I hope I never stopped learning. I don’t necessarily want to retire early, but I hope I found a job that was enjoyable enough that I’d want to keep doing it. And if not, I hope I had the luxury of trying something new and enjoying that for many years.

As far as finances go, I don’t manage them very well now because I’m afraid of them. I don’t manage them very well because finances are boring. If I were interested in finances I’d have become an accountant. I don’t want to spend my life worrying about finances. I hope I can learn enough in my studies now so that I can set up my finances to largely take care of themselves, with a little nurturing on occasion, like my scorpions. I check in on them, and make sure they have food and water. I give then good hiding places and try and make sure they are kept somewhere that’s warm but not too hot.

I don’t want to spend my life worrying about little things that can become big things. I’ve had the luxury at this point of keeping things fairly under control. I’m not in debt, I have a stable job, I save a good amount of my paycheck, though not as much as I’d like to be saving. But I also sort of skid by. I haven’t taken the steps that would make things even easier. I don’t have any investments and my savings account gives me pennies each month.

Next chapter.

New Year’s resolutions are ultimately just goals. For me, the trickiest part about goals is keeping them realistic. And I doubt it will happen here. But one thing I’ve noticed: while many goals are hard to stick with, if I can manage just one day in a few to pull everything off, I still feel pretty good about myself.

Organization:

• Room gets thoroughly cleaned at least once a month
• Vacuum every two weeks
• Clean bathroom every two weeks
• Go through clothes and get rid of what I’m not wearing regularly
• Organize all the papers
• …AND the filing cabinet

Finances:

• Have taxes done by end of February
• Live off $600 per month (occasional large expenditures OK, like trip to Louisiana, and possible down payment on a house)
• Keep up with Tithing, check at the end of each month
• Take a personal Finance course, learn good investment and plan for retirement.
• Pay gas and Utilities at least a week before they are due
• Find checkbook.

Spiritual:

• Read scriptures daily
• Work on praying twice a day
• Sunday School lessons done a week in advance
• Read at least one gospel book every two months.
• Temple trip at least once a month (preferably every two weeks).
• Work toward being endowed.

Physical:

• Karate at least twice a week.
• Yoga at least once a week.
• Rock climbing at least once a month.
• More biking and roller-blading in the summer.

Social:

• Write to friends and family more often.
• Don’t neglect my friends in town.

Computers:

• Sort through the data. Organize it and get rid of old stuff (remember the filing cabinet).
• Make external backups of everything.
• Work towards Network + Certification.
• Work towards LPIC certification.
• Set up proper home network with Samba.
• Learn home network security.
• Finish soldering serial port to router.
• Read a chapter of a computer book a day (a week if it’s more than 20 pages).

Education:

• Figure out a path to finally graduating.
• Read 4 books a month
• Work on math or sciences at least once a week.
• Just be constantly learning.

Some of these goals are more inportant to me than others. And as a vague goal I want to find the things that need to be a priority and work out a schedule for keeping up with them. Essentailly, I want to learn how to put first things first in my day. But I also want one of those priorities to be having a bit of fun each day, and recognizing what fun is. So, here’s the list, today we’ll start with that bedroom…

http://imagechan.com/images/7d9a0b8f43f9318649e150e6a0f8d466.jpg I go to this when work gets a little too tedious.

The Media Codecs are installed and my movies are playing beautifully. Whenever I do a major install or upgrade these days I look for advice from people who have been there and done that. The following link points to the website that helped me get quite a few things I was looking for:

http://www.gagme.com/greg/linux/f9-tips.php

I didn’t add everything, no IE for this little machine. And in other news, while I was out poking about, I discovered that Fedoda 10 should be released in 4 days.  That’s always the way of it. Still, I like to wait at least a few weeks after a release comes out before doing upgrades on my major machines. So the install on the server is still on.

Fedora 9 Desktop

Back in 2003 I was starting to seriously get into Linux. I found myself in sink or swim when my old computer died and my new computer with Windows XP wouldn’t recognize the network card. At that time I installed Red Hat 9 (dual booted with the XP) thinking I had nothing to loose, and with no Internet and a broken backup, nothing better to do. Red Hat 9 not only installed smoothly, it picked up the Network Card that XP wouldn’t recognize. I’ve been a huge Red Hat fan ever since. But immediately following Red Hat 9 were the Fedora and Fedora Core Distros. For a long time, things were never quite the same. In fact, I still have Fedora Core 4 on that old server because of all the effort I put into getting it to run smoothly (not that I have ever done less with Windows). Tonight I installed Fedora 9 on my primary Laptop. The good days of Red Hat are back!

The initial install led me to believe that I would have to do some tweaking, as I’ve had to in the past, in order to get the wireless card working. I had to plug the laptop into the wired network in order to get a few extras during the install. It was also useful for setting up the NTP server and sending Red Hat my Hardware configuration. As one who usually uses older hardware, I want to encourage Red Hat to build in the best possible support for my machines. As soon as the install completed I went to see about setting up the wireless. It was already there! A quick connection to my network and we were downloading the latest updates. At the same time I plugged in my USB drive and started restoring my backups. Incidentally, Fedora 9 (and the Fedora 8 before this) recognize the 8GB Scandisk that I’ve been using without a hitch. For some reason my Mac won’t recognize it (I haven’t eliminated the possibility of a broken USB drive) and my XP laptop has to go through a long, involved, though mostly automated process before I can use it there.

The next step of course is to add a few things. I used Yum to quickly install Thunderbird, Wireshark, Ruby, and Filezilla for starts. We also customized the look and feel very nicely. It was then off to get the essential in Firefox Addons: Web Developer, Firebug, Yslow, Adblock Plus, Show IP,  the Clear Cache Button, All-in-One Sidebar. The Sidebar is on trial. I’m not sure it’s worth the reduced view-space. I then adjusted Firefox to never save passwords, always show the tab bar, and set http://www.google.com/linux as the start-up page.

Everything that bugged me about Fedora 8 is gone. I had some trouble with window borders when I turned on my desktop effects. No sign of that now. As much as I’ve hated Yum in the past, it’s working smoother than ever. When I installed the additional programs I guessed the name of most of them. No problem. They all installed beautifully.

The few grips that I have really have nothing to do with Fedora. I wish Gnome came with an auto Desktop Changer. I’ve been looking up a few alternative options online that look promising. And we may yet have another go at Emerald.

I also need to setup this little machine to play movies. As most Linux people probably know, the codecs for playing DVD are proprietary and often cost money. As such Fedora doesn’t include them by default. I’ll need to look up the free alternatives. That will come later today. My Mac Mini is still my first choice for movie playing anyway.

Finally there is the matter of upgrading between releases. I didn’t do that between Fedora 8 and Fedora 9. Things degenerated a bit towards the end with Fedora 8. But I’m quite optimistic about the eventual move from Fedora 9 to Fedora 10.

So, this means I shall be breaking down and buying and external DVD drive to plug into my Fedora 4 server. As smoothly as this has gone, I now have no qualms about updating that machine. Also, in hte past my first choice for newbies has been Ubuntu. I hate it with a passion, but it’s easy for those who don’t know what they’re doing. No more! As far as I’m concerned, Fedora is back on top. As such we will probably back up Kristen’s box tonight and move her over. Kristen is keen on this. Could be my own infectious enthusiasm.

Now, October is probably my favorite month anyway, but so far I’m having a particularly good time. For starters, my best friend Matthew flew down from Oregon to spend the weekend with me. He arrived Thursday afternoon and I spent most of the evening cooking up a good meal for him. I want him to remember me every time he goes to Taco Bell and gets so much less. But the big plans were for Friday and Saturday. So Friday we hiked up to Stewart Falls. It’s a fairly mild hike, and Matthew took dozens of pictures. Most of them can be found here: http://flickr.com/photos/mattheww/sets/72157608186637435/ We also had dinner and did a movie with Gina and Ryan that night.

Plans to go to Bryce on Saturday fell through when we realized it was a 4 hour drive instead of 3 hour. But we had a good time sitting around watching Battlestar Galactica and heckling Kristen over her date. Then it was dinner and a Star Trek movie. I pick good friends.

After dropping Matthew of at the airport Sunday it was home for church and sleep. But Monday I got up in the early afternoon and went to buy a piano. Kristen and I brought it home that night and set it up. It’s been a big hit here at the apartment. I think Victoria has played it more than I have, but we had fun this afternoon playing “Heart and Soul” together. And to top it all off, I finally received the complete series of ” The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” Throw in the fact that Halloween is coming up and it’s no wonder this is my favorite month.

The Five Love Languages "The founder of Christian faith wanted love to be the distinguishing characteristic of His followers." (The Five Love Languages, 19)

by Gary Chapman

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Synopsis: Gary Chapman, a well-respected marriage councilor looks at love and marriage and addresses the problems that couples frequently face as soon as the honeymoon is over. He identifies Five Love Languages and their role in an individual’s ability to believe that he or she is loved. The five languages are:

Words of affirmation
Quality Time
Receiving Gifts
Acts of Service
Physical Touch

While Chapman declares these to be the five primary love languages, he does acknowledge that there are several dialects within each. He discusses ways to show your partner love in a language he or she will recognize, and argues that a lot of marriages may be failing, not due to the fact that love isn’t being shown, but due to the fact that love is not being shown in a way that your partner understands. For each language he identifies several dialects and gives ideas and techniques on how to show love to your partner in that language (learning how to “speak” your partner’s love language). He also discusses way to discover both your partner’s primary love language, as well as your own.

Review: You have to appreciate Chapman’s ability to keep it short, sweet, and to the point. With all the self-help and marriage counseling books out there, is it nice to find one that you can get through quickly, while still receiving excellent advise on how to improve, or even save your marriage.

As someone who is not married yet, and has enough trouble just with dating, I was particularly interested in what he had to say about love and courtship. Chapman states that “falling in love is not real love because it is effortless.” During the falling in love stage we frequently become obsessed with the other person to the point where anything we are asked to do for that person becomes effortless. Chapman notes that falling in love is more of an instinct that often drives us to do what he calls, outlandish and unnatural things for each other. At some point we come down off the emotional high, and return to the real world. At this point love becomes a choice that is concerned with the emotional well-being of our mate.

While Chapman’s theories on the five love languages ring very true, I still have some reservations about what he says. For example, he notes that one partner may have Words of Affirmation as their primary language, and that a frustrated spouse who constantly criticizes may in fact be doing a great deal of damage since the person is being directly attacked on the front that matters to them the most. This bothers me a bit. According to Chapman, not everyone will have Words of Affirmation be their primary love language. But Psychology today recognizes that one of the major forms of abuse is verbal abuse. I don’t think Words of Affirmation needs to be someone’s primary love language in order for them to be severely damaged by negative words from their partner. Chapman argues that if both partners have a full love tank they will be kinder to each other, but I would be very much interested in hearing more from him about integrating all the love languages into a relationship. One might be more important that others, but I don’t think anyone likes to be torn down verbally, even if it’s the least of their love languages. I was just very concerned about the concept that a person might give a mate who’s primary language is Physical Touch lots of love and affirmation in that area, but might still be nagging or abusive on other areas. Champan touches on this a bit, but I would have appreciated another chapter on how to interact with your spouse in all areas after having found their love language.

Still, overall, this is a very good book that I’ve already recommended to several people. The subject of happy marriages can be a bit touchy in a society with so much divorce and anger. It’s perhaps a sad testemant to all that is going on that as I read this book, I feel both optimiztic and enlightened, and worried that this might just be another fad that can’t really save the marriages around me. Still, concerning the primary idea of finding out how to express your love to your partner and making that effort to let them know that they are loved, I do believe that is an important step in itself towards building happier marriages and closer families.

The Screwtape Letters "All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that he at least may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, 'I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.'" (The Screwtape Letters, 60)

by C. S. Lewis

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis: Wormwood has a problem, the soul he is charged with dragging down to Hell has converted to Christianity. In an effort to assist, his Uncle Screwtape, a senior devil, sends him a constant stream of advice based on the patient’s (the person’s) current mental and physical states. Based on Wormwood’s reports, Screwtape both evaluates the patient, and gives advice about how to subtlety nudge him closer to Hell, where the hordes of Devils look forward to feasting on his soul.

Review: It’s very hard to go wrong with C. S. Lewis, but people the world over agree that this is one of his finest works. Screwtape’s analysis on how to attack the patient are particularly poignant in that he frequently suggests two completely opposite approaches for each scenario. The conflict appears due to the fact that just about any virtue can be taken to an extreme or distorted in a way as to make it a sin instead. This occasionally makes the reading a bit tricky, for it is easy to recognize virtues, and Screwtape (and certainly the devil today) is a master of very slyly twisting those virtues. One may need to read over the passages a few times to pinpoint were the behaviors and attitudes really start to go wrong.

One could possibly consider this a guide book to the many ways our behaviors start to run amok. It is interesting to note that most of Screwtape’s attacks lead towards gradually building up ill feelings towards other people. The remainder are largely focused on how to get the patient to destroy any ability to believe in his own redemption and worth.

One thing that particularly interests me about the book is that it would be very easy for a good-intending Christian to take the words in here, and start desperately applying them to his or her own life. Certainly there are many areas and aspects of our daily life in which we are open to temptation. But one thing I do not believe Lewis intended of this book, was for the reader to now become fanatical about perfecting every aspect of his or her behavior. It is important to be aware of the tools used against us as we strive to become better people. But one should remember that the most vexing moments for both Screwtape and Wormwood occur when the patient simply turns to God and looks for peace in his life. In those moments Wordwood often finds that all his attacks are rebuffed no matter how clever they may be, and that the patient is shielded from the temptations Wormood is throwing at him. Thus we see that while it is important to recognize the various ways we can fall, ultimately, when we seek to become better, we are saved by grace and there is nothing more powerful that God’s love in lifting us up.

Still, these letters by a master tempter are a marvelous tool in the arsenal of Christians everywhere. I personally was able to look at just about every attack and recognize times in my life when I’ve allowed myself to slip into thought patterns or behaviors that are not condusive to becoming a better, more productive person. I would strongly encourage all people to read this book, not just Christians. Whether you believe in God or not, there are some behaviors that are to be avoided in life, and some that will help you in being a better friend, citizen, and person. This in not a book to be breezed through. This is a book to read with a pencil and postit notes, making marks and comments for yourself. And it is certainly a book to read over and over again.