nixternal

Big Bang
I recently started working for a local company here in Chicago called Cleversafe. It is a company that specializes in distributed storage solutions. And the best part about this, it is an Open Source company! Want to view their open source community, check out Cleversafe.org. I am the new Linux Packaging and Development Engineer. What exactly does this mean? It means I will be packaging up their application for various platforms as well as maintaining the appliance we create. The current appliance is built off of the CentOS 5 platform, but who knows what the future will bring, as I am eying Ubuntu/Debian as well as Foresight. Other stuff that I will work on in the future is the Open Source Community. After 2 days, I am in love with the place. Everyone is super cool, and it is just like every open source community I have worked with, so diverse with people from all over the world nestled into a very nice office space in the West Loop Gate area of Chicago.

Evolution
Oddly enough, being an open source company, they currently utilize Microsoft Exchange Server. The nice thing is, I don’t have to use any Microsoft products! That’s right! And their Exchange Server doesn’t even support IMAP or POP3, OWA only. KMail will not work with this setup, Thunderbird sucked just as bad, but Evolution, I am impressed. So you LUG Radio folks and your KDE PIM bashing, I will have to join you a little here. It took me a few minutes to figure everything out configuration wise, but as it stands, I have my Inbox, Personal Folders, and even Company Calendars. I have 2 minor annoyances thus far though, 1) Evolution wants to lock up every now and then, and 2) None of the alerts work from the Company Calendar. For 1) I may be the problem behind this, so I will have to test later tomorrow. For 2) I could very well be missing something, so if you use Evolution in a similar environment and have your alerts working with an Exchange Calendar, fill me in. The last time I used Evolution was way back in those Ximian days, and have since been using Mutt and lately KMail. Kontact is without a doubt the greatest in certain areas, and of course the areas I used it with (POP3). I have to admit though, Evolution is kicking ass with Exchange.

Religion
Free software is my religion, and with the new job, I get to exercise my religion on a daily basis and get paid finally So for those doubters out there, free software can pay, and pay well I might add. If free software is where you want to make a living, don’t give up! I spent about 14 years volunteering in the free software world always wanting that free software job. Well, I never gave up and now I have it. The only downfall, my time with Ubuntu and Kubuntu may be limited a bit. Looks like the weekends will be for Kubuntu and KDE, and as soon as I am settled into the new job a bit more, then I can start devoting time in the evenings.

So, if I am a little slow in responding, now you know. I know all of you in my previous KDE 4 posts keep asking questions and wanting this or that packaged, and as soon as I get some time, maybe this weekend, I will work on getting you what you want, unless of course someone beats me to it.

Oh, with the new job came a new work laptop, a Dell Latitude D830 which is a Core 2 Duo with the Nvidia Quadro NVS 135M. Thus far, using the binary Nvidia drivers, it is working well. I wish it were the Intel X3100, but since it is a freeby I will not argue And my lord is this thing heavy. 15.4″ widescreen that does like 1680×1050, insane! For those of you who may have been looking at this lappy, let me just say with Hardy (Kubuntu and Ubuntu), everything works out of the box, this include Wifi (Intel 4965 AG/AGN) and the Bluetooth! Rock on. Oh, and Kubuntu is getting just under 5 hours of battery time. Finally a lappy for me that works well with Guidance

Tomorrow afternoon Jeff, Gabriel (if he is feeling better), and I will set out from Chicago to Troy, Michigan for Penguicon. Looks like I will be hanging out with the Ubuntu Michigan crowd for the weekend, listening to some talks, drinking Jorge’s and Jono’s beer when they aren’t looking. Hey, I am a starving student, flat out broke. I have $20 in my name right now and searching for more before leaving tomorrow I don’t even have a place to stay yet, but I think Jorge said it best, who sleeps at a geek fest

Anyways, if you are heading to Penguicon, drop me a note here in the comments and if you want to buy me beer, food, or just hang out during the weekend, let me know

Yes, I am using my blog hoping to get in contact with my ride to Penguicon this weekend. Myself and Gabriel need a ride, which Jeff is, however he is impossible to get in contact with.

SO JEFF JIRSA IF YOU READ THIS! EMAIL ME, CALL ME, DO SOMETHING!

This weekend, April 4^th and 5^th, is the annual Flourish Conference, a decent sized free software conference held at the University of Illinois at Chicago. This years guest speakers include Bruce Perens, John ‘Maddog’ Hall, James Bottomley, Brian Fitzpatrick, Ben Collins-Sussman, and me of course, plus many more. Some of the events being held include a mini-BarCamp, a Hack-A-Thon, and a Web Framework battle. If you are in or around Chicago, I hope to see you there! I will be giving a talk on the KDE community as well as KDE 4.

Lighter side of things, I updated my Vista box to SP1 this past week. I haven’t been attacked by the driver issues and what not, but I am getting killed every time I let the computer fall asleep. I can click my mouse button to wake the computer up, but upon wakeup, neither the keyboard or the mouse work. I was going to file a bug report, however I was unable to find their bug tracker

I see we are now a few weeks away from the 8.04 release. That is pretty groovy. Is it me or did this release cycle seem to go on forever? Dapper was 9 months yet seemed faster. Edgy was 3 months and was really fast. Feisty and Gutsy flew by, but Hardy, heck we still have a few weeks to go. What a busy cycle. I am excited with a lot of the new features with our beloved Kubuntu release. Thus far, Kubuntu Hardy with KDE 4 has been rock solid. The only issue I had during this entire cycle was the libc6 issue. Remember that one? That was fun

My blog was recently updated to Wordpress 2.5. I am not sure yet if I really like the whole new admin interface just yet. It seems a bit slower than the previous releases, but it does look a tad bit better in most ways. I didn’t have any problems either. Gotta love those one-click installs that Dreamhost provides. All I had to do was just update the database and rock on. None of the problems like with the previous 2.2.x releases that drove many of us up a wall.

Oh well, here’s to you and hoping that I see you at Flourish! Take care!

I just learned the hard way. I updated all 3 about 15 minutes ago, and lets just say, none of them work. I can get to TTY, but can’t log in. malloc this and malloc that everywhere.

Thank God for my Foresight install! Otherwise, like I just told Ken Vandine, if it weren’t for Foresight, I would be watching TV right now :p So I guess while I have Foresight up and running, KDE 4.0.2 as well baby, I might as well work on some Foresight bugs now.

Talk about irritating, I was working on my 5-a-day and my really-fix-its. Now I will work on a small https issue, some rebranding for Foresight KDE 4, and maybe even some documentation. Get ready Ken, here I come! Prepare to upload

/me ssh’s into Og’s box and does ’sudo conary update group-kde-dist’

Celeste, I have no problem going off-topic every now and then with a blog post, I am used to people yelling at me already

Anyways, in response to your 5 artists 5 songs post, here are mine:

Sammy Hagar

• Cabo Wabo (really by Van Halen, but it is Sammy’s song!)
• Eagles Fly (really by Van Halen, but Sammy made the song!)
• Shaka Doobie
• Mas Tequila
• One Sip

The Beatles

• Yesterday
• Hey Jude
• Let it be
• Yellow Submarine
• Come together
• truthfully, there isn’t a Beatles song that isn’t my favorite

Led Zeppelin

• Dazed and confused (man those were the days)
• Stairway to heaven
• Black dog
• Moby Dick
• Kashmir

Pink Floyd

• Comfortably numb
• Time
• The great gig in the sky
• Wish you were here
• Another brick in the wall (Pt. 1 and 2)

Brittany Spears
Eric Claptop

• Tears in heaven (I still shed a tear during this tune)
• Layla
• Crossroads (this is more Robert Johnson, but you can hear Eric wailing away with Cream)
• Cocaine
• Wonderful tonight (my karaoke song on every date)
• and a lot more…

This is tough to list my top 5, as I have a lot of blues and reggae favorites that are up there as well. People like BB King, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Robert Johnson, Blind Boy Fuller, Mephis Minnie, Bo Diddley, Bob Marley, Buju Banton, Peter Tosh, Jimmy Cliff, and many more. Janis Jopplin is another favorite of mine. OK, I could go on forever, but now I will list my 5 friends who I want to see there 5 groups 5 songs. Those people are Ken Vandine, Kevin Harriss, Jorge Castro, Stephen Stalcup, Jonathan Jesse, and everyone’s favorite, Juan Carlos Torres.

Now for on-topic talk, remember to do your 5 A Day, and remember to drink your Ovaltine!