Or something like that... Could be for just sitting on your couch and drinking expensive beer. Maybe. It's, just that, well things are funky all over.

New job.

Was supposed to kick start my ass to do more. More adult shit. But, well that hasn't worked out at all. Though, now that my garage doesn't resemble Sanford and Sons, I think I can light up my heavy bag come morning.

Time slips right fast. Straight toward that big fucking black hole in the sky. Yeah, this entry is really, really REALLY positive. Should have slapped a rated R on it's arse.

So, here we are. Sitting on the precipice of deceit and... Whoa! What the fuck!? That was not me. No no no.

My beer is getting warm, so I will make this short: love the one you're with. Bwaahahahahahah!

Out.

Today, I had the most peculiar experience. A (female, and pregnant, but that has no importance at all for this story) cousin of mine complained on Facebook about a virus infection on her Windows machine (I assume Vista, but I actually didn't bother to ask). Locked out by one of these ransom viruses. Worst part is that she did have an up-to-date antivirus sponsored by the Bank where here partner works.

I don't mind helping, but -of course- my first comment was. "Drop that crap OS and go to ubuntu.com and get a real operating system". I NEVER expected her to actually do that. Well, she jumped on the occasion. She was also very happy to hear what a live CD is and that she could recover her data from her current installation using the LiveCD and copy it to a USB disk. So, she managed to burn the ISO, boot to it, copy her data and install the whole thing. Basically without me helping except saying that it could be done. I also explained what dual booting was and she could do that.

She asked me one question: Why do you use Windows? My reply was: I don't, unless I want to play games (the non-Flash variants. I illustrated Flash games with FarmVille). The tipped her over: She'd go full Linux.

I was completely baffled... You have to imagine the frustration Windows had to put on her so that she would try something completely unknown, just because I say I use it.

First reactions were: Hey, this thing already has Firefox,,Thunderbird and an Office suite. Wow, I have four workspaces (she means virtual desktops). She found Ubuntu Cloud (5GB seems a lot to her, I wonder where else she has been?) and -while not Ubuntu specific- I explained her what Firefox Sync is. She also seemed to like the idea of the Software Store (I compared it to Apples App Store, I know not the same, but she has to understand what it is) and steered her to installing ubuntu-restricted-extras and explained it was to install Flash and similar.

Linux on the desktop... Yes, it can be done... She is non-IT, perhaps a bit geeky, but definitely non-IT.

Thanks to whoever burned five.

Wow, you get so many mod points, you feel the need to blast all 10 at me? I'm no longer the most prolific poster on slashdot, why do you bother?

Got myself 58% more screen real estate at 117.99€. The prime condition on a Full HD[*] monitor was that it must have integrated speakers. This is because it saves desk space. That's hard to find in my allocated budget of max. 149€.

Funnily enough, this is exactly the same model as my moms screen which I bought nearly two years ago. 149€ back then. I have cursed myself ever since that day that I didn't buy one for myself.

The integrated speaker isn't as great as the ones in my old Fujitsu-Siemens C17-2, but more than sufficient for the occasional youp...I mean youtube video.

On a related note, I start to have quite a few "spare" LCD screens now.

[*] As much as I'd love to have a 2560x1440 monitor, there is no way I want to spend 400€++ on a monitor.

I don't program much these days any more, but due to a not very important reason, I wanted to do a little something with Java Server Faces. Being a sysadmin by day, I thought that setting up such an environment would be easy-peasy, as long as I stick to the default packages, I'd get an environment that would be more than sufficient for my modest needs. Basically, my idea was that

aptitude install tomcat6 libjsf-impl-java

on a base Debian squeeze would do it. I mean change a config file left and right, drop the webapp in /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/ and point my browser to http://dusky.sharks:8080/megasuperextremewebapp

Well, apparently, it's not that easy. I took this as test web application, as it looked extremely simple. I immediately got greeted with a ClassNotFoundException on com.sun.faces.config.ConfigureListener. That seems to be one of the core JSF classes. No problem right? Just a classpath problem right? Well, I do remember that could get quite complicated. To make a long story short. The JSF jars are in /usr/share/java where you'd expect them. Superficially there didn't seem to be an entry to that in the classpath, so I added it manually. Didn't help.

Well, let's try adding a few symbolic links to the web applications WEB-INF/lib part... namely jsf-impl.jar and jsf-api.jar. Nope... Then I read something that can't do that but need to copy the jars to make it work. I do so. It still doesn't work, but the ClassNotFoundException is gone (replaced by another one). WTF?!? Java doesn't work with symlinks?

It's pretty much at that point that I decided to write this, because despite all my Googling, I found no references on how to do this (using default packages on Debian). All instructions basically are quite Windows centric, instruct you to download software here and there tell you to copy jars nilly willy, which would be okay if they explained why. I don't like "just do this" instructions.

I'm a big fan of the central repositories, but unless I have a blonde moment, server-side Java doesn't play nice at all...

So, is there anyone who ever tried using just the packages and have it work?

It's my full Raspberry Pi kit: I was lucky, the two high speed 4GB SD cards were 5€ each on sale, and the power adapters were on sale at 7.50€ each.
The RS Components Pi was 39,16€. The Farnell/Element 14 Pi was 42.05€ (including the t-shirt!).

The whole shebang was thus "only" 106,21€....
The SD cards are both loaded with the default Raspbian, with SSH enabled (just added links manually in /etc/rc[2-5].d)

Called them up Wednesday to ask why the order never shipped. They confirmed me that it was because of an expired card, and if I wished to cancel the order. HELLO NO!

*grin*

I'm not a Windows fanboi... Far from it. Yet, Windows 8 might not deserve the bad rap it gets in the tech world.

I think this because I remember how the tech community reacted to Unity on Ubuntu. Hey, I did react violently too, because Unity in 10.10 to 11.10 definitely sucked. I continued to use it and I have to admit that in 12.04 it has become good. Sure, perhaps a bit dumbed down for the average power-user, but I can live with that.

If you read here more often, you might think "why for hells sake did you continue to use it if you didn't like it". The reply to this is that I use Ubuntu (LTS) for a "drop and forget" for non tech users. I was utterly dreading giving them Unity.

My worries were unfounded. When my dad had to go to the hospital (twice) earlier this year (He has COPD as we've now been told and has been on the brink of death twice), I provided him with a low-weight dumpster-diven laptop (CoreDuo/4GB RAM, if you must know) on which I quickly installed Ubuntu so he could surf and email. Not a single question was asked... None. Sure, my dad is Windows power user, but really, no question at all.

I upgraded my Mom's computer to 12.04 LTS in May.. Not a single question either... My mom is no tech...

I will say it how it is: Mark Shuttleworth was right, and the tech community wasn't.

What has this got to do with Windows 8? Simple: the interface is radically different, just like Unity. It's radically simplified, just like Unity... We techs all hate it, just like Unity. However, has anyone ever bothered to sit down a real non-tech user in front of it? That will tell us the success of failing of it. Normal, non-tech users, will probably like the simplicity.

I predict that, if Windows 8 doesn't have other problems, it might not be the disaster we techs think it will be.

To my complete and utter astonishment, I got my Raspberry Pi today. Not the one ordered at Farnell, but the one ordered at RS Online on 23 May 2012. Very quick. (Okay, for a piece of hardware with these kind of waiting lists) They never sent me an email that it was shipped. Nice surprise though.

Downside: the Farnell one should have shipped with a t-shirt. I like t-shirts... My wife doesn't, at least not the geeky ones.... So we'll just put this up as a draw ;-)

So sometimes, betting on two horses, does work.

Given Farnell promised them for end-June, I really don't expect them to deliver next week (no email, no nothing), I bothered to go through my credit card statements. The money was never booked. I have no idea why...

It could have to do with the fact that my credit card expired in April (this means, in April it was still valid) and I ordered the 4th of April 2012. Should still have worked, but if for some reason they delayed the transaction, the credit card they had from me was expired. Just a little email to update my details would have sufficed, but I guess with the demand, why bother with a single order, right?

So my bet is: I won't get it. Not from Farnell. The RS Electronics one was booked, but the order was made much later on my new credit card.

I think I know what to do with my Raspberry Pi, when I finally get it.

Limited to 25 posts/day? When did that happen. Lame.