Thanks basically to TBL and the Community Ubuntu Documentation in particular, my HP Pavillion dv3550ez now has sound! I followed the instructions on this page, scrolling down about halfways to a section with the title “Having sound issues with HP dvx laptop”.
Now I can confirm that Rhythmbox is indeed a most excellent music player. And thanks to wine, I’ll soon be able to confirm if Baldur’s Gate II really does perform under Linux. Hah!
The books I’d ordered from Amazon have been in my possession for a few days now and I’m wondering how useful they are going to be. It seems to me that I have learned more about Ubuntu by figuring out how to set up my test environment for Joomla! than by reading the Ubuntu guide book. The required packages are provided on the DVD which was included in the Joomla! guide, but seeing as I wanted to learn something, I decided to download the newest versions (xampp and joomla itself). Downloading was not problem whatsoever, setting up xampp was a different experience altogether. I needed to use the terminal in order to extract the content of the package (tar). The first difficulty was that I had saved the package in the wrong place (correct place is apparently my home directory). So, after finding out that salient bit of infrormation (by reading the manual carefully the second time around), I hit another wall because Ubuntu doesn’t have a root user as such. Therefore the dreaded su command doesn’t work.
In these circumstances the Internet is your friend, and the Ubuntu forums and their wiki are brilliant sources of information. So, instead of su-ing, we sudo. And for the first time, my terminal does something other than giving me an error message. Hallelujah!
Now I can start xampp. Or so I thought. I have a 64 bit installation and xampp only works with 32 bit binaries. Again, the Ubuntu forums are a great help, and I download and install (from the terminal!, sudo-ing without needing to be told!) the correct binaries and now have a functioning local webhost with sql database.
There were a few more snags, all of them minor, and all of them gotten around with the help of the friendly Internet. Which means, without the help of my Ubuntu guide book. Which is why I’m wondering how useful it is going to be to me.
It is, however, very likely that I would not have needed to search as much, and maybe not at all, had I spent more time studying the book before trying to swim at the deep end.
Time shall tell!
There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that the Joomla! book is going to be immensly useful. Extremely well written and really doing what I expect of a guide book.
As much as I dislike getting up early, I enjoy the benefits of doing so. One is empty buses and trains, the other is the colors you only see at this time of day (“this time of day” being 6 am).
The sun is only just rising above the horizon, illuminating the few clouds from below, the clouds reflecting the yet weak light down onto the snow covered mountain peaks off in the distance… I never expected to use the words “shades of faded yellow and grey” in a positive way.
Then the sun clears the horizon, and what was subdued and pastel turns into a spectacle of bright yellows and oranges and whites. Nature at her most glorious!
Ah, it makes me wish I had a decent camera with me at all times.
A Song of Ice and Fire is not a book as such, but actually a series, so far consisting of four novels (“A Game of Thrones”, 1996, “A Clash of Kings”, 1999, “A Storm of Swords”, 2000, and “A Feast for Crows”, 2005) with three more planned for future release. It is the only fantasy series which has come close to matching The Lord of the Rings in creating a whole new world which is fantastic and believable at the same time. The main characters are also incredible lifelike in that there is no one who is entirely good, or entirely evil. The least likeable one may well be the most reliable one after a while, and the ones who were sensible and reasonable to begin with turn into self serving madmen. None of them are entirely safe, either. There are no main characters in A Song of Ice and Fire; any and all of them might die at any given moment.
The world feels real. We’re given glimpses of the most varying landscapes, climates, civilisations, and yet we get the impression that we have only seen a minute part of it all.
But the main thing is this: It’s got Dragons in it. It was thought that they had died out, but three hatchlings are around, and we are granted the privilege of seeing them grow up. Grown Dragons in ASOIF are apparently creatures of a size beyond anything imaginable and they are formidable foes (or allies).
Despite all those positive points, it is difficult to justify choosing A Song of Ice and Fire for my top ten list, as it seems to have hit some sort of a wall. While the first three books were published in four years, the fourth installment was 5 years in the making. This long delay was in part due to the fact that it had gotten too long, and Mr. Martin decided to make it into two books. Not going the normal route of splitting the book halfway through the story, he decided to focus on only half the characters which bascîcally meant completely rewriting the book. And although one would imagine that the whole story for the other half had been written by then, the second book, focussing on the second half of the cast, is still not published and no information as to its publishing date is forthcoming.
I find it difficult to make up my mind on where I stand on this entire issue. On the one hand I do feel that it is the author’s prerogative to write (or not write, as the case may be) as he or she pleases. They are the creators of their works. Readers’ rights are limited.
On the other hand I do understand readers who feel cheated by Mr. Martin. It is true that he seems to have time to promote his existing work in many different ways (a D&D based table top pen and paper role playing game published by Green Ronin being one of them, an upcoming video game another). He has time to be involved with HBO’s pilot to a TV series based on his books (ok, the news IS great. Sean Bean will play Ned Stark). He has time to edit tributes to Jack Vance and he has time to do a thousand other things, but the most recent update on his website concerning the next instalment of A Song of Ice and Fire is dated January 2008 (on a side note, his website is a bit of a disgrace, it seems to have been done the “write way”)
What Mr. Martin has produced so far is nothing short of brilliant. That is why I have A Song of Ice and Fire on my top ten list. What has been going on since then is actually sad and disappointing. By the time “A Dance with Dragons” will be published (if it ever is published) I will have forgotten the finer points of the plot, the minor character which make the story so rich, and I will have to re-read not one, but two 800 page novels to appreciate the new one. And to be honest, I am not sure if I’m willing to invest that much time. As a reader, I do not have the right to demand of the author to write, but I do have the right to refuse to read.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=a33a4642-717c-45c3-868a-fb3cbf315daa)
I ordered two books from Amazon yesterday for a ridiculous sum of money (my wife could probably buy 10 books for the same amount). I realised that I hadn’t learned anything really new in a very long time and that I wanted to teach myself something (more or less) useful.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently installed Ubuntu on my laptop. While I can use it fairly well thanks to its Gnome GUI, I actually have no understanding whatsoever of the underlying Unix system. The instructions I would have to follow if I wanted to solve my audio output problem are made up of cryptic lines of text that needs to be typed into a terminal window. Terminal windows are somewhat archaic. This so reminds me of John Zachman, who still makes his presentations with overheads! And John’s presentations rock! Which I think is reason and motivation enough to want to come to grips with this terminal thing and Linux in general.
I do find it difficult to use something if I don’t at least have a basic knowledge of how it functions. Many times I would prefer knowing exactly how things work, but I think that Isaac Newton was probably the last human on this planet who could claim that he understood most things. We have made too many discoveries in the meantime and it is no longer possible to be an expert of all things.
So, in an effort – not to become an expert, but at least – to build up a basic know how of how Linux works (and in the process maybe even solve my blasted audio problem), I ordered “Linux lernen mit Ubuntu“. The mysteries of the terminal shall be demystified. Sound shall sound!
On a totally unrelated note: Ever since I first heard about joomla, I’ve been curious to find out how that works. But after having played around with a test install for a while, I have to say that I have either gone stupid in my old days, or then maybe the interface is just not as intuitive as I am used to. Or, more simply put, the interface is not what I’m used to.
I have no real need, nor use for a content management system. But it is something which I find very interesting, and the days of web pages being created the “write way” are definitely over. Joomla appears to offer the possibility of creating static web pages, as well as dynamic ones without too much effort. It will also be interesting to see in what ways a dedicated CMS is different from wordpress, which as far as I can tell can just as well be used for content management. And I’ve also been wondering if it is possible to integrate the two
Hopefully, Joomla! 1.5: Das umfassende Handbuch will answer all my questions.
The two books cover subjects which are not related to my professional activity. Nor (probably) are they very entertaining, but it has been far too long since I learned something new about computers and the web.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=35c7a464-c437-4177-aa02-f3cdb6bf6566)
This Time by Waylon Jennings
