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!

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.

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.

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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.

It is difficult to summarize or categorize this book. What makes it appear on my top ten list is that I only read it once, decades ago (2, to be quite precise), and it still lives in my memory.

It might be described as a tale of friendship. How true frinds can drift apart, not see one another in decades, and upon meeting again they can connect, despite both having changed, evolved, matured.
It is also a tale about the quest for perfection and how perfection can mean very different things to different people. For Narziss it a life of worship, for Goldmund it is art. They both realise that in their cases the good is the enemy of the best, that nice and friendly and calm and quiet are not good enough, that in order to achieve their goals, no compromise is possible, everything has to be done with the greatest of passion.
This is a theme that Hesse had already explored in much more drastic fashion in the Steppenwolf and, to a lesser extent, in Demain.

I find it fascinating how similar Narziss und Goldmund and The Steppenwolf are. It is something not too many people pick up on, as the style and tone of the works are dramatically different. The underlying themes however, are very similar, if not identical. Narziss und Goldmund treats these themes in a much more mature way. It is as if in the (few) years between their creation, Hesse had come to terms with not coming to terms with mediocrity, with burgeoisie and with his contempt for all things normal.

The Steppenwolf may be Hesse’s most famous novel. In my opinion Narziss und Goldmund is his best. I do realise that most scholars and experts would argue that that place should be occupied by “Das Glasperlenspiel” (The Glass Bead Game). I have tried to read and understand this, his magnum opus, but I never managed to get into the story, the world. My guess is that this is due to the fact that I am not yet adult enough to fully appreciate it. I’ll try again in maybe another decade.

Installation (with the help of something I recall being called “Yast”, which always made me think of yeast. Not pleasant) was not nearly as straightforward as they claimed. And when the assistant told me that it was done doing its job and I found myself sitting in front of a black screen with a blinking cursor (despite having chosen to install something called a KDE), I called it a day. Suse was unceremoniously fdisked and big sister’s win95 went back onto my screaming 10k rpm scsi hard disks.

Since then, I haven’t touched anything calling itself an OS if it wasn’t designed in Redmond, WA. When Ubuntu came along, I downloaded it and started it up, once, just to see. I thought it was rather pretty, but I was a bit underwhelmed, so I didn’t install and then forgot about it again. When I got my laptop (HP Pavillion dv3550ez) it came equipped with Vista. Now, I’d heard all the bad things that are being said about that OS, and I suppose they’re true. How’s this for an example: a newly booted Vista is idling (1.5 minutes pure boot time, then all the services and agents and applications initialising for another 3 minutes) with 0.9GB memory occupied. Doesn’t look like optimised use of resources to me. In and of itself, this is not a tragedy, but it does rather seem like a waste.

That’s when I remembered Ubuntu and I decided to give it another go. The download was easy and fast. Deciding on a setup option was not quite as simple a task. Sometimes, having too many choices isn’t the best of things (options always come with both a value and a cost, the cost often gets ignored). Should I

• Remove Vista and completely remplace it with Ubuntu (not a wise choice with no experience in using the thing, IMO)
• Set up Ubuntu as a Windows Application (this, I think, is quite ingenious, as it even allows you to use Windows’ “Remove software” feature to get rid of Ubuntu in case you don’t like it. However, since it will then be using the same file system, it claims to suffer from small performance hits)
• Or set Ubuntu up on its own partitions, with a dual boot option to be able to choose between Vista and Ubuntu on startup?

I went with the third option, as it just seemed the right thing to do. I mean, if you’re going to do something, might as well do it right. Right?
The installation assistant is very straightforward and, well…. assists you. Not many choices (language, location,keyboard layout, user, password), then the question of where to install (remove previous operating system, or dual boot setup, answered by choosing option #2), from there on it’s all automatic. Very pain free, and the whole operation takes no more than 15 minutes.
The moment of truth: does my “precious” Vista still boot? Answer is yes (it does do a checkdisk and it finds new disks on startup, but everything else is as normal). Then: does Ubuntu boot? Again the answer is yes. Yay! It actually looks even prettier than what I remembered, it boots up really fast, and the things I need function (ie. screen, internal mouse, WLAN, USB ports). The moment I connect to the WLAN, Ubutu tells me there are updates available (approx 350MB worth) and I think “Cool, this is well organised, let’s update!” That’s where reality hits: not enough disk space. Argh!

The whole experience is quite fascinating. I find it amazing how we (I, at least) get used to things working in a certain way. It took me a while to get used to the “Start button” not being on the bottom left, but the TOP left of my screen. But then I quickly found Firefox (again thinking “Cool! Everything I might need is already here, including Open Office. Double cool!”). The logical thing to do is -obviously- search the web for help freeing up disk space. Alas! Firefox can’t start up because: you guessed it: Not enough disk space!

To cut a rather long story short: after a week of trying to figure things out, I reinstalled Ubuntu, this time choosing to set up the partitions manually. I seem to have gotten it more or less right (although the 4GB of swap are never used, and /home appears to be slightly oversized with 9GB (only 300MB are used))

My Ubuntu is now working just fine. And I can’t stop being amazed at how much faster and resource friendly it is (it is booted and ready to use in under 1 minute, and with Firefox, Thunderbird and Open Office Writer running I still only have 600MB of memory used. And the best part is that (almost) everything works. Even the Swisscom Mobile Unlimited modem, the one thing I fully expected NOT to function correctly. I plugged it in on a whim and it simply worked! It is a lot faster to connect than it ever was under windows with the unlimited data manager.

The ONLY thing that does not work is sound. But I’m confident that I’ll soon find a solution to that as well.

To sum it up: I am impressed! Very, very impressed! I hardly ever boot up Vista any more (for iTunes, Half Life 2 and Oblivion) and I feel very silly for not having tried out Ubuntu before now. Very, very silly indeed.

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Whenever there’s a sporting event with a French team playing, I cheer for them. Whenever that day in mid-July is approaching I wish I could be in Paris to witness the festivities, the fireworks over the Eiffel Tower, or over the Arc de Triomphe (or even La Grande Arche in the Défense), to hear La Marseillaise being played on les Champs Elysées.

The thing is, I’m not French. I don’t have any French relatives, I have never lived in France. However, I have lived in the French speaking part of Switzerland (la Romandie). And although in the beginning it was difficult to get used to the mentality, it is something I now miss without actually being able to put my finger on what exactly it is that I’m missing. I even tend to forget about it for months at a time, but I inevitably end up in the Romandie on business and then I’m reminded that there’s an entire different culture only a few kilometers from where I live.

Be that as it may: Here’s to a Happy Birthday to France, la dernière Grande Nation (avec le petit président ;-)

Inspired by another blog, one which does provide you with new material for your reading enjoyment on an almost daily basis, I have been thinking about books. Mainly, how I haven’t read very many books recently. Back in grade school, I had a little competition going on with a friend to see who could read more books from our class library. I lost, I just couldn’t keep up with his speed (something mad like two and a half books per day!), but I did read a book a day for a number of years. So, how is 2009 looking? If I’m allowed to count the books I finished in 2009, I’m at 4. If it’s books I started and finished in 2009, it’s a sad and sorry, lowly 2 books (Volumes 1 and 2 of Joe Abercrombie’s “The first law” trilogy named “The Blade itself” and “Before they are hanged”).

I really have no reasonable excuse. It’s not like the books I did read are multi-thousand page novels (Abercrombie’s clock in at around the 500 page mark each, Dan Simmons’ “The Terror” was just under 1000 pages, “Consider Phlebas”, the only other book I finished in 2009, has about 500 pages), nor did I not enjoy them while I was reading. The reason for my lack of enthusiasm is that while the book were good, they were not magnificent. In all honesty, while “The Terror” may be better written, better researched, more gruesome and more real than any of Dan Simmons’ science fiction books, it never captured my imagination the way “Hyperion” did. “The Algebraist” by Ian M. Banks was far more enjoyable than “Consider Phlebas”. Joe Abercrombie has certainly made a name for himself with his dark, gritty tale, his likeably unlikeable characters, his tight story telling, I still felt more involved in George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire”.

Having said that, Mr. Martin has postponed the publication of the next installment many many times. He is probably paying the price for the lack of tightness in his storytelling, which is a pity, since he has created what is surely the most detailed world since middle earth and the most detailed, life-like, hate-able, endearing characters in fantasy literature. I do realise, that as a reader, I have absolutely no right to demand anything of an author, but I would dearly love to see at least another volume in the series.

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The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Not much needs to said about this book. Not much can be said. Every time I get into the history of its creation, I can’t help being utterly amazed at how much time and effort went into it. I remember knowing places and characters from the book long before I ever read it. Long before I even knew they were from this book, or even before I knew of the book. I’d heard of the Prancing Pony, of Gandalf and Elrond, of Mordor and the Nazgûl and was fascinated by the images those names evoked. All of them sound like the things and people they describe should look.

The Lord of the Rings is the book responsible for my addiction to fantasy novels. Before reading it, even the concept of fantasy literature was utterly alien to me, and I suspect that had I read a different book first, I might not be a fan of the genre now. Genre defining books are few and far in between, and even today, 60 years after it was first published, fantasy novels (and series!) will be compared to Tolkien’s work. And not many compare favorably.

This was the first book which after 1500 pages left me wanting more. So much more. And at the same time I was convinced that Tolkien had managed to put everything which was needed into the story. More would have taken away from my imagination, and therein probably lies the reason why I adore this book so much.

Les faux monnayeurs by André Gide

I committed the folly of choosing this book as one I was going to read for the oral part of my French final exam. Not knowing that my French teacher was (is) an expert on everything Gide. Also not knowing that it was going to prove impossible to find a German translation of the blasted book and that I’d end up having to read it in French.

Even today I am grateful to all the bookstores in Olten for not carrying the German version. I learned more French in the two weeks it took me to finish the book than in all the years of classes before then. I am still (even having re-read it) a bit unclear about the early chapters, since my French was in no way adequate to fully grasp what was going on.

Side note: I find it fascinating how these things function. I am convinced that even if I re-re-read the book now (my French has considerably improved in the meantime) I’d still be hazy on those early chapters. Kind of like Max Frisch’s Montauk. I have read the book 3 times, and all I can actually remember is that I love it, and that at one point they walk in the bushes on the beach of Montauk… But really, it’s a lovely book

Back to the book. One of the many things I enjoyed was how one of the main characters of the novel is the novel itself. How the author shares his thoughts on some of the characters, their development and their relationships, thus becoming a leading character himself. “Le roman dans un roman sur le roman”.

Great, now I want to read it again. And somehow I suspect that I no longer own the book. *sigh*