Merry Christmas - Love & Peace to you all.

Every year I can't help but be thankful for how lucky I am.  I have wonderful friends and family, we share an elaborate meal and trade gifts.  There is always a few fights / bickering, but we're together and we love each other regardless.  I've had a blessed life in many regards.

Yet here I am, Christmas yet again and all I can think of, is all the people unable to celebrate Christmas with their family, friends and loved ones.

To all those suffering, in hospital, unable to make it home and to those brave soldiers stationed away from those they're closest to this year.  Merry Christmas, my thoughts and love go out to you all.

My wish will always be to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and to stop all conflict.  Our world has the potential to be a beautiful place, let's work together as one to achieve that!

Merry Christmas.

Easy Cable Labels and Organisation!

 

Untangle This! - The Worlds Worst Cable Clutters!

Domestic cable mess?

Are these familiar sights?

Crawling down the back of the entertainment unit or venturing under the desk, to add / remove yet another electricity draining item of technological DOOM can strike fear into even to the most organised technologist!!!

Where does this cable come from?  Where does it go?  What does it belong to? HELP!!!

There are so many cable identification systems available to us, for a price.

Stick'nGo

Cable Clips

Kableflags

Tie on Cables

While wandering around the world of Google Plus, I came upon an incredibly ingenious post by Bree Weasner that solves all your cable confusion woes sorted, using items that can be found in your kitchen!

With the addition of a few bread tags, you can label and easily identify which cable belongs to what in an instant!

I can not believe I never thought of this sooner.  A perfectly easy Recycle, Reuse, Reduce solution to all your messy cable issues!

8bit Friday!

I know I know, it's been a little quite on the blog for the last week or so, let's just say I'm under the pump at work.  Not really much time for developing my open source skills :-(

Anyway, it's getting so close to Christmas, I'm stunned at how quickly this year has gone by.

8-Bit "Let It Snow":

On a more charitable note... Ignited Digital Choir are donating $0.05 per view to charity!

Ignited Digital Choir:

8bit Friday!!

This weeks 8bit Friday youtube is more on the geeky then retro gamer style.

Fun with GLiP Projects!

GLiP Project - Demo

And just because it's getting to that time of the year.  Here is a fantastic 8-bith themed synchronised Christmas lights display.  I just love that they have an FM station playing the music the lights are synched with so you can enjoy the display from comfort of your car!

Rymdreglage- 8-bit trip! Christmas lights dance with Light-O-Rama 2009-

Ubuntu 11.10 issues with Wifi.

In July / August this year I installed Ubuntu 10.10 on my Thinkpad, I noticed when I logged in that the wireless wasn't working.  After some research I discovered that my Thinkpad is running a Broadcom BCM43224 wireless network card and that there were a number of known issues with the Broadcom drivers.  Luckily for me there was a patch available that would solve all my problems automagically, took a few hours and a ethernet connection but I managed it.

I recently upgraded Ubuntu to 11.10 and haven't had much of a chance to play around on it.  I did notice on Sunday night that the wifi wasn't working, ethernet was working fine which is why I hadn't noticed the issue earlier.

Deja Vu much?  After the hoops I had to jump through to get wireless working on Ubuntu 10.10 I couldn't believe I was having the same issues in Ubuntu 11.10...  

This time there is no patch sitting waiting to be downloaded that will automagically fix the wifi for me.  After some research I found a few "work arounds" (could someone explain to me please why we have to find work arounds for known issues?) 

The work arounds suggested deleting modules and installing other ones, although the work arounds had been well received I don't entirely feel comfortable jumping in and deleting modules and bits left, right and centre unless I know what it is that they do.  I initiated a game of 20 questions with Mr. O.G.

Problem:
Thinkpad running Broadcom BCM43224 wireless addapter, Ubuntu detects the wireless network card but proceeds to install the wrong drivers.

Solution:
Add bcma to the blacklist file created by bcmwl-kernel-source's postinst script.

• Edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf to include bcma

This will enable the wl module to run properly.

For full information feel free to have a look at the Ubuntu bug report raised ~8weeks ago & suggested bcmwl-kernel-source patch information.

What bothers me most is that this bug effects a multitude of people and has been reported several times.  I could understand that it could be considered a low priority issue and that valuable resources are being allocated to more pressing matters, but seriously accompanying this bug reported 8weeks ago was a patch to fix it... It would take very little to review, approve and make said patch available... my mind boggles!

8Bit Friday Video!

Yes I know it's that time of the week again I haven't forgotten, just running late!!!  Because I'm running late I'm going to give you 2 for the price of 1!!

This clip combines so many of my favourite things, 8bit music, gaming, lego & stop motion animation!

8-Bit Trip-

This second clip has been floating around G+ and I thought it was pretty brilliant.  Could be a fun new hobby?

Mario enters the real world-

EUREKA! Desktop Chaos Cured!

Finally some time to play around on Ubuntu 11.10.  Wasn't all fun and games, solved an annoying "issue" I'd been having created a few weeks ago.

For a reason unbeknownst to me, all folders in the home directory were displaying on my desktop.  The desktop folder was empty so I could not for the life of me work out what was going on...

I did note that the mysterious appearance of folders on my desktop commenced after changing all the folder names from capital letters to lower case letters.

Google is my friend!  Had a quick look at ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs

Shall we play a game of spot the difference?

<<

This is what my file looked like... oops!

>>

This is how it looks now... yay!

So it turns out that, when I renamed my folders using "mv" the user-dirs.dirs wasn't happy and automatically selected my desktop as it's default directory path for everything!  Most annoying.

Very simple solution, for a very simple mistake.

"Why are my folders appearing on my desktop - Ubuntu"

Dragon Ball Z meets Metal!

Yeah not a fan of Dragon Ball Z.... But I no longer think I have a crush on this guy I totally do, big time!!!

All I want for Christmas is my very own 331Rock in a Jar.

Dragon Ball Z Meets Metal

Youtube Random Investigations!

Tonight's random youtube investigation had me discovering the new, remembering the old and finally delivering what I was looking for.

Search term "Can't fight this feeling" which resulted in:

The Herbaliser - Can't Help This Feeling (!K7)

Which was awesome but not what I was looking for.  Totally loved the theme in that clip, any clip with guys in shoe chaps is a winner! (they are chaps right?)

This lead me to:
The Original Ooga Chaka Baby Video

Again not what I was look for but bloody close... Also that baby totally rocked the 90's!!!  

It was the Ooga Chaka baby that finally brought me to the original song I was looking for!!!

Vonda Shepard - Hooked On A Feeling

Not entirely sure why I felt the need to look up this particular song, but my gosh I love her voice and this rendition.

Weekend Geekery & a Lesson in "Bar Speak"

Alas not much weekend geekery this weekend.  Did update Ubuntu Natty (11.04) to Oscelot (11.10) !  I've always wanted my own Oscelot... annnnywaaaaay, haven't had a chance to play yet, did notice the login screen has had a facelift so I'm expecting it will be prettier.

Had zero luck with the 2hrs of LCA2012 badge hacking on Friday night but I was tired so I wasn't expecting much.  The rest of the weekend was spent working!  Killer deadlines this week.

Voted for the submissions for DrupalDownUnder2012 and purchased my Early Bird Ticket.  Really looking forward to seeing the schedule!

Sunday afternoon I did receive a lesson in "Bar Speak".  Two very important lessons in fact:

1. Apparently "there's one in the tap" translates to I've already paid for your next beer and it just needs to be poured.  
2. The more important lesson is you want the beer to stop flowing (i.e your pot magically being refilled every time you finish your beer) you need to lay your pot on it's side.  Laying your glass on it's side is an indication to the bar tender you done.  

I really wish they had of told me rule 2 that after the FIRST beer!  I said I only wanted 1 beer, 3 beers later.  :-(  My company found this incredibly amusing, I didn't zero productivity Sunday afternoon.

Same Sex Marriage

There is far more important matters to consider in the marriage of two loving adults then their sexes.

Marriage isn't just about the joining of a man and woman in the eyes of God.  It's about the joining of two spirits/souls in a loving and committed relationship no matter the sex.  They care for each other no differently than those involved in a heterosexual relationship.  It is their right as consenting adults to have that love recognised in the eyes of the law and to celebrate their commitment like any other loving couple, in ceremony before their friends and family.

Who is anyone to judge the value of another's love or connection and deny them the same rights offered to the majority?

Marriage is about LOVE, RESPECT and COMMITMENT.

The girl who silenced the world for 5 minutes

Powerful sentiments from a young girl capture the attention of the UN delegates. If only her words could drive the changes we seek. Some my disregard this as too simplistic a view to have on the world. But loving, sharing, nurturing our own species and the world around us couldn't be more simple.

This is a 5minute youtube well worth every second.

Friday 8bit Video

This youtube isn't in my usual fun musical playful amusing style. But a worthy video none the less. PIXELS is Patrick Jean's latest short film, shot on location in New York. New York is invaded by 8-bit creatures!

PIXELS - by Patrick Jean

Linux Lessons via G+ Hangout!

Introduction to the Command Line

This is hopefully the first in a series of Linux tutorial hangouts, where we introduce you to the basics of the command line, SSH, basic shell scripts, package management, editors.

Questions and suggestions are welcome, the idea is to interact and go with what the audience wants vs a structured lesson.

The lesson will be at Saturday, 26 November 2011 at 7:00:00 p.m. UTC - URL to check what timezone that is for you http://bit.ly/vX9rk2

Please re-share with anyone you may feel interested.

Lessons will be held in English and run by +Liz Quilty

Check out Rimuhosting G+ Page for further information.

I'm not 100% sure I'll make it being 06:00 on a SUNDAY!!!  But for anyone interested in an introduction to Linux I would HIGHLY recommend this!

For those of us unable to attend, fear not I am fairly sure that this lesson will be recorded and easily accessible, just keep an eye on the Rimuhosting or Liz Quilty's G+ Pages.

Blog Stats!

One thing I utterly love about this blogger blog, is the stats for each of the pages.  So much information available and I don't have to log into my analytics account just to see it.  Loverly!

Enjoying yesterday's blog stats specifically.  It doesn't look so good when I look at the entire week and month, but hey baby steps!  (It would also appear Russia has a big windows base! They ruined my stats!)  Oh and no laughing at my piddly numbers, this blog is more for me then for an audience! :-)

Geek Lessons last night!

With an increasingly busy work / life schedule, it's getting more and more difficult for O.G and myself to find the time to catch up and geek out.  Geek lessons didn't really commence until ~23:00 last night.  Which has done nothing for my beauty sleep, I feel like a barely warmed up zombie today!

Discussions last night started of with the pros and cons of white lined paper, demonstrations of the awesomeness that is my LiveScribe pen (I seriously couldn't survive my job without it!) then hitting the proverbial books!

Started with a few demonstrations of additional VIM features/shortcuts then it was time to get serious, conversation then went into discussing strings, variables and arrays, how they interact and pull from each other as well as the importance of formatting in Python.  >_<  I think print will be my bestfriend for a long time and will be very very useful.  I haven't really had much time to read up on Python yet so this rather unexpected lesson caught me off guard.

I understand that I could easily cheat with a debugging program, but I wanna do it myself!

Anyway I'm too tired to write much more now, I have instant coffee *ick* to drink, clients to call and work to do.~!

LCA2012 Name Badge Hacking, the saga continues...

I am absolutely sure that since I've started using Ubuntu, all I've done is install stuff, which I find incredibly odd since Ubuntu for all intents and purposes, is an over inflated "feature" packed OS full of pre-installed junk.  Why on earth am I spending so much time downloading things!!!

Tonight's glorious list of installed programs / packages;

• Aptitude installed - Check
• Python installed - Check
• Zookeeper installed - Check
• Git installed - Check
• Graphviz installed - Check
• VIM installed - Check
• SQLite installed - Check
• Gnucash installed - Check
• Gnupg installed - Check
• Screen installed - Check

• Editing of apt/source.list - Check
• LCA Zookeeper repository cloned & forked - Check

sudo !! all over the place with a bit of forking this and root that... Linux makes me feel so dirty, love it.

*yawn*  all that scrolling text is somewhat hypnotic, doing this whilst tired is probably not such a great idea, but  one can not learn unless mistakes are made.

Attending the Melbourne Woot Moot this week, should be nice to meet some females of the geek persuasion, I need to improve my male vs female geeks ratio... Seriously I only know male geeks.

Wish I had more time this week for geeking alas the Virtual Assistant business is booming and I'm under a lot of pressure!

Google+ Hangouts.

Well yesterday afternoon and last night was spent experiencing my very first public hangouts.

I must say I do have a preference over the Hangout with extra's to  the standard Hangout.  The ability to share screens is more than just a little bit handy, especially when doing geeky linuxy lesson / guide / brainstorming!

I've met a few individuals definitely worth circling but there is  very low likelyhood of me becoming a "hangout slut", sure it's fun, would definitely be useful for long distance communications, but I'm too much of an in flesh kind of girl.

Google+ Hangouts definitely have massive potential for lessons and group sessions in "How To's", already there are talks of geeky lesson ideas amongst a few people I know which is very exciting.

Although I love my mentor to pieces (BIG LOVE TO THE O.G) it is always a fantastic idea to learn and gain guidance from as many different like minded sources as possible.  Of course at this stage of my linux geeky development I'm concerned about how easily confused I could become, however I hoping with like minded individuals that would be far less likely.

I hope that my mentor Mr. O.G considers collaborating with a few of the G+ers in their informal lessons on G+ Hangouts, he's a most excellent teacher.

Due to some of the conversations had in G+ Hangouts today, I played around with windows video / audio recording abilities for G+.  Will be very handy for a YouTube channel or reposting ability.  YAY!

On a completely unrelated note, this weekend I have the 3D TV to myself (and friends) can I heara "UNCHARTED 3"!!!  BOOOOYAAAAHHH!!!!

Friday 8bit Video

For the last 3 weeks I've been sharing and posting an 8bit themed youtube video every Friday morning via various social networks.    I may as well make it a tradition, so it's that day of the week again, making it Friday 8bit Video Giggle Time.

"8bit World and features Hoodie Allen"

Hoodie Allen is a New York based rapper and songwriter.  He is definitely worth a watch if you are a fan of hip hop, great flow and none of that American Gangster shit.

Previous Friday 8bit Video Giggle Time:

Galaxy Nexus Available in the UK?!

Well it would appear that the first people to get their grubby little hands on the Galaxy Nexus will be the UK!  


Android Google Page Announcement:
Galaxy Nexus is landing in the UK! Itching to get your hands on one? Be there 8am this Thursday at Phones4u 112-114 Oxford St, London, or secure one over the coming days from O2, Three, or Vodafone. Learn more at google.co.uk/nexus


After watching the live Galaxy Nexus release on youtube I wasn't really wowed by the Galaxy Nexus, personally I think that it is Icecream Sandwich that has got me all excited! 


We can only hope that Icecream Sandwich is available by the end of the week!

My Top 7 Linux URLS & Cheat Sheets

The man pages don't always have all of the answers, or if they do sometimes I just don't quite get it.  This is a list of my most commonly referred to websites for answering my many questions or troubleshooting.  I don't know where I'd be without the internet and Google.

1 http://ss64.com/bash/ - Next to the Man pages this is my bible!
2 Tuxfiles
3 Jon Oxer's Regex Cheatsheet
4 VI Cheat Sheet
5 Emacs Cheat Sheet
6 w2schools CSS Examples
7 Added Bytes Regex Cheat Sheet (I use the PDF version, NO ADS)

I'm a huge book person, I just LOVE reference books sitting within easy grasps, so all of this website referencing I've been doing is completely foreign to me.  I have such a long list of books that I want and the physical versions are just so expensive, it would seem I may just have to resort to eBooks and an eReader!

Are there any other recommend resources you think I should definitely consider?

Uncharted 3 Yes - No - Maybe

Had the perfect start to a lazy Sunday afternoon.  Awesome breakfast, coffee, catching up on social media and current news. Then it was time to "hit the books" so a relatively small portion of the afternoon was spent reading up on github, since it is going to be necessary to use it to hack my LCA2012 name badge figure I should do some reading on the subject.

Sunday afternoon wasn't spent in Linux/Unix geekery, suffice to say a severe case of lack in motivation caused me to put away the laptop.  Fat with fine food and coffee it was a perfect time to sit back and play some.... UNCHARTED 3!!!  After the previous evenings espcapades in acquiring Uncharted 3, there was no way in hell that I was not going to get some game time in this weekend.

Saturday Night Geek Lessons

Ok, having some minor issues hacking my name badge for LCA2012... AND NO THAT IS NOT A REQUEST FOR HINTS OR THE ANSWER!!!  

I have a few more months to geek up enough to accomplish that right?  I'm well on my way, already found the clues and the bits and pieces, just need to work out all the checksums and salt business.  I'm happy with where I am since I never expecting to get even this far.  I have definitely come to a point where I'm struggling had have various ideas of where to go and what to do next.  I chatted to O.G about some of these ideas and received minute amounts of direction and plenty of confirmation.  I'm sure once I get a few more blocks of free time I'll progress in leaps and bounds :-P

For me, this weekend was supposed to be all about Uncharted 3 (PS3).  I had been looking forward to playing this game for ooooh a good 6 months!  Silly me got the release dates confused, I honestly thought that it came out the same day as Skyrim 11/11/11.  But nooooooooo it was released 01/11/11 talk about massive #girlfail

Of course I was totally unorganised, the sale on Uncharted 3 I'd had my eye on (obviously not closely enough) ended on the 09/11/11, so after scoping the internet for a new deal, rude staff and store hoping I managed to get my grubby little hands on a copy at about 22:30... not such a great start to a new game on a Saturday night!

Arriving at the "classroom" ~23:00, I totally wasn't in gamer mode, instead laptops were turned on and noses were sunk into all manners of geekiness.  The original plan of gaming quickly morphed into "I must install Drupal 7.7 and all associated goodies (MySQL & PHP & fave modules etc) on Ubuntu".  Tangent much?

UBUNTU 11.04 WHY YOU NO HAVE DRUPAL 7???

Nyan Cat meets Metal!

This guy is a brilliant guitarist.  He's covered My Little Pony, LOTR, StarWars, Pokemon, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter the list goes on and on and on and on... just awesome!

I particularly love the long hair, blue eyes and retro shirts!!!  I could listen to these all day!

RETRO GAMING!

I'd also like to advertise a friends YouTube Channel 321 Show Episode 1 while I'm at it!  Hosted by a bunch of retro gamers in Adelaide Melbourne.  Full of laughs, flash backs and excellent humour!

Help is Everywhere!

In a world so heavily populated it's surprisingly easy to feel utterly alone.  There is always someone to talk to and there is always help available.

There is help and support networks everywhere all you need to do is ask for help.  I know better than most how difficult it is to ask for help, but I'm so glad I did when I had to!

I'll always have an ear, shoulder and a hug for anyone that needs it.

Some valuable resources for people suffering from or struggling with depression can be found at Beyond Blue.  For the more geekier persuasion I'd also like to recommend having a wander through Blue Hackers, a support network for geeks suffering with or struggling with depression.

Totally out of context, but totally apt. "WE ARE NOT ALONE".  - Fox Mulder.

Iraq Veterans Against the "War"

Although this is not a geeky post... I had to share this... It brought a tear to my eye, ALL veterans have a place in my heart and this "War on Terrorism" in my opinion is a joke... Please share this video and help undo the mass brainwashing that seems to have occurred.

There are many support groups out there for returned soldiers.  Don't forget to show them your respect and support.

Returned and Services League of Australia

Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia

Young Diggers

Iraq Veterans Against the War

It's never too late to start!

I'm 30 years old and I'm female so the odds are already stacked against me.

I'm so overwhelmed by the amount of support networks and groups available within the FOSS community.

I've recently joined the following groups, but would love to hear some suggestions;

• linuxchix mailing list
• owoot mailing list
• drupal - linkedin

Much of what is being discussed and shared is still above and beyond my grasps, but it's comforting knowing that there is a wealth of information sitting right there, waiting to be tapped into.

Thank you to one of my commenters Xanni for informing me about the beginners LUV meetings.

I'll be heading to DrupalDownUnder and LCA2012, my first geek conferences, I'm bubbling with excitement and enthusiasm.  It will be interesting to see friends I've known for years in their elements and giving speeches.

Recent Geekery Lessons.

My most recent geekery lesson included;

• apt-get - installing and updating software
• apt-cache - help finding software you don't exactly know the name of
• irssi - basic navigation and the /help file
• ssh refresher and screen 
• VI - navigating and how to's.
• ED - navigating and just more of a historical need to know. (I'll stick with vi for the moment, kthx)
• Counting in binary & hex
• The history of Unix - this will have to be revisited again, I can't recall much of those conversations
• C - it's uses and it's creators

I have been downloading programs left, right and center. Chromium browser, pidgin, GIMP (I LOVE this program), htop, deluge, tweetdeck (including apache air), Inkscape (although I haven't used it much) and I've also upgraded Ubuntu 10.10 to 11.04.

I've also been playing with adding and removing users, using a variety of methods as well as learning how to give and take permissions.

In June - July this year I created my first website (since 2001 html geocities site) using Drupal for my business.  I've learned a lot since I created that website and already I want to give it a revamp.  This was done on a windows machine, so I'm rather excited to start creating a localhost on the Ubuntu box.

I ROOTED MY PHONE.~!

I rooted my phone and I did it all by myself!!!  I was too scared to do it with my first smart phone the HTC Dream.

It's not entirely new news, as I upgraded from the HTC Dream to the Samsung Galaxy S 2 in October as a late birthday present to myself, but thought I'd include it in this blog as a geeky achievement for my own records... I'm proud of myself! :-)

I took my new shiny, exciting toy of DOOM out of it's box, charged it and turned it on.  I was disgusted at how bloated with "features" it was - having got it from Optus it was chock a block full of their apps and products... NO THANK YOU.  So no sooner did I get it out of the box, I was looking up ways of how to flash the firmware and update it to Gingerbread 2.3.5.

I found a wonderful website, with an easy tutorial and a youtube and away I went.  Nervous as all hell and just hoped that if I blew it, one of my various geeks could assist me in FIXING my boo boos.  I worried without any need at all, the process was just SO simple!

I was surprised by the difference the upgrade made and I can not wait to get Icecream Sandwich onto it.

Some NEW news, this week has seen me downloaded an app off the internet and installed it.  Normally I only download apps through the market, but Wifi Killer is no long available through the market.  It works a treat by the way. :-)

6th Grader - iPhone, iPad App Developer gives a Presentation.

It's seeing clips like this that gives me so much inspiration.  It also makes me wonder if I'm coming to the game too late?

I'm excited to see how his career progresses, seeing that he wants to get into Android, is already acquainted with Python and C makes me think he'll become a FOSS fan and advocate in no time.  I'm so impressed by his desire to bring this information to his peers and to share the knowledge with the younger community.  He's quite an inspirational individual.

BEST OF LUCK LIL MAN!

And so it begins...

I have spent the greater portion of my adult life befriending, socializing with and dating highly intelligent males of the geeky persuasion.  Being constantly surrounded by brainiacks, puzzlers, socially awkward and knowledge hungry individuals it is not beyond the realms of possibility that some of their interests and passions have rubbed off on me.  I've become what I affectionately call a pseudo-geek.  I can talk the talk but I most definitely don't walk the walk.  I am capable of understanding, participating and contributing to geek conversations, however I've never really lived that lifestyle, I've always been the interested observer.