It’s been a while…
Once again I’ve gone a long time without an entry. If it’s any consolation my Twitter feed has been pretty active. I’ve been so busy with work and trying to figure out where all the time goes. I have a couple of posts in the pipeline and hope to release them soon.
Gowalla in Viet Nam
I distinctly remember installing Gowalla on my Android phone directly from the market. Over the past few days, though, friends and coworkers have been complaining that they couldn’t find it in the market.
Yesterday, I contacted Gowalla and asked them about it. It turns out that the last time they submitted the app to the market, some bits got flipped and permission for other countries to download was lost.
These permissions have been restored and Gowalla can now be downloaded from the Android Market again.
Bob Dylan in Viet Nam
On 10 April, 2011, Bob Dylan played at RMIT University in District 7 of Ho Chi Minh City. Estimates put the crowd somewhere between four and five thousand. David and I were there, along with friends. I thoroughly enjoyed the show and was glad to have been a part of a legendary performance.
Following the concert, there was much todo in the media and the blogsphere. Many media reports focused on the music that Dylan didn’t play. Many bloggers complained about the music he did play. I had intended to write a counter piece to all this, but I find that I no longer have to.
My friend, Eric Burdette, wrote a great review of the show, saying pretty much everything I felt much more eloquently than I. Go read it–it’s really a good summation of both the evening and the issues.
The Bangkok Post has an excellent article about the concert. It’s the sanest media coverage I’ve read. It’s also a pretty good review.
Finally, I’d like to make a comment about the VIP seating: bwahhhaaahhaaahaaaa! If you paid full price for your “VIP” seats, you were suckered. At least one negative review of the show came from someone sitting in the “VIP Section” and I can’t really blame him for the bad review: those seats were crap. Sure you got a chair, but you were angled to the stage in such a way that your view sucked and you were out of the main cone of the sound system! That’d piss me off, too. I bought cheap seat tickets and had a fantastic view and a great time.
GNOME 3 and Arch Linux
I’ve been following developments in the GNOME community for a while. In particular, I’ve been watching the battles rage over decisions made in the development of GNOME 3. The GNOME developers have tried to rethink the way we use desktop environments and window managers, and they’ve made some very controversial decisions.
For example, they’ve done away with the maximize and minimize buttons. Windows now sport only a close button. Maximize is done by double-clicking the title bar or by dragging the window to the top of the screen. Restore is done by either double-clicking again or pulling the window down. There is no obvious method to minimize, but you can do so by right-clicking the title bar and selecting Minimize.
The developers and interface designers argue that max and min buttons are rarely used and, in my case, they’re right. They argue that buttons that don’t get used are just a visual distraction and should be removed. Again, in my case, I agree. Not everyone does, though, and that’s caused quite a stir.
People forget that GNOME 3 is not an incremental upgrade. It’s an attempt to rethink how we use the desktop. It’s a genuine effort to come up with something new. As such, it should be applauded. Before you condemn it, you should at least try it. See if the new work flow and UI suits you. If it doesn’t, fall back.
I set out to try GNOME 3 this weekend and, at the same time, break away from my normal default Ubuntu install and play with Arch Linux. Arch Linux has a decidely different feel from Ubuntu or Fedora. It’s a rolling release distribution, which means it’s always up to date. That also means that you’ll install from a snapshot and the first thing you need to do is bring everything up to date by downloading and installing updates. This took the better part of a day for me due to my crappy Internet connection.
Once ready to go, though, Arch performs very well. GNOME 3 installed painlessly from their testing repository. It’s fast and looks very good. I’m still playing around with GNOME 3 but my initial impressions are very positive. I like the work flow, and I like the window management. It’s a cleaner, less cluttered look than previous GNOME incarnations. I’ll spend some time with it and share more thoughts as I go.
Cyanogen Mod 7 and battery life
I’m not going to get into the Android vs. iOS debate here. I’ll just say that Android suits my workflow better than iOS and leave it at that. I’ve owned three Android phones: the original HTC G1, the Motorola Milestone and the HTC Desire HD (my current phone). And, yes, I’ve used iOS devices, too, which is why I can say that Android suits me better.
When I got my Desire HD, I suspected that the huge, beautiful display would be a battery eater, and I was right. I typically got about 14 hours of use, which was barely enough. I’d have to plug in my phone as soon as I got home. Sometimes, I’d have to plug it in during the day, especially after heavy use. Usually, by noon, I’d see the battery bar had slipped below 50%.
Last week, I bit the bullet and upgraded to Cyanogen Mod 7. I’d tried some of the release candidates with varying degrees of luck and was unimpressed. With the release of 7.0, I was ready to give it a serious go. I’m so glad I did.
I use Battery Monitor Widget (I use the Pro version) to monitor my battery usage. Since installing Cyanogen Mod 7, I’m averaging 17.5h of battery use a day. On a typical workday, I get home with over 30% of my battery remaining. Today is Saturday, so my phone’s seen only light use. After 11 hours on, I have 70% of my battery remaining. That’s an incredible number. Battery Monitor Widget tells me I have 16 hours of battery life remaining, a projection based on usage since the phone was unplugged. If true, that’ll mean over a day and a half of battery life, a number I can live with.
Get Solarized
One of the great things about chatting regularly with peers is that you get little hints and tips that help you out a lot. For the longest time, I’ve been a die-hard “black text on white background” kind of guy. I flirt occasionally with “white on black” but I’ve always gone back to my comfortable, boring “black on white”.
Even though I find this colour combination soothing, it still bugs my eyes after hours of staring at the screen. I was chatting with my friend Dave yesterday, and he pointed me at a color palette that he’s fond of: Solarized. After a day of using it extensively with iTerm and Textmate, I can say that it’s much easier on my eyes. Thanks, Dave!
Daring iOS devs and sysadmins needed!
Posted by chris in General SysAdmin, Linux, Viet Nam on 15 April, 2011
You’re an iOS dev. You’re bored. You need some excitement in your life.
You’re a Linux sysadmin. You have a lot of experience with Linux in the cloud (AWS). You’re bored. You need some excitement in your life.
If one of these statements describes you, I have some great news! The company I work for is desperately seeking iOS devs and another Linux sysadmin. We’re located in Viet Nam, in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City. We have a warm, wonderful work environment that’s very much in “startup mode”. We’re a great group of people that occasionally resembles a UN tech meeting with members from Germany, France, the US, Canada, Australia and, of course, Viet Nam.
If you’re interested in stepping outside of your comfort zone and exploring SE Asia, leave a comment. We’re definitely interested in talking to you.
After a long hiatus…
Over the past few months most of my public net communication has been on Twitter. Now I find that I have more than 140 characters to share, so watch this space. I’ll be making a few entries over the next few days. For starters, I have a post coming up about the recent Dylan concert. More soon!
Cloud Computing with Amazon
Posted by chris in General SysAdmin on 14 December, 2010
Last Sunday, I attended Barcamp Saigon. I did a presentation on using Amazon AWS/EC2 for Cloud Computing. It’s a pretty hot topic in Viet Nam.
The talk was very well attended. I had the largest room at the RMIT venue, and about 50 people were in attendance. I had planned on speaking for about 20 minutes, but I went the full half hour and then got dragged out into the hall for q&a. It was a lot of fun.
I uploaded my Keynote presentation to SlideShare and it was featured on the SlideShare homepage today!
Of course, it was all about Team Skunkworks! It’s great to be working with such a terrific team. (Not all of the team is in the photo, sadly. Not everybody could make it…)