zoap

I’ve had it with windowz… This weekend, while i was just surfing the web a bit, i suddenly got hit by the xp virusscanner 2008 virus… And man, it fucked up my machine pretty good! Blue screens (had not seen those in a while), fucked up fonts and hell who know what more it broke. I’m not a complete idiot, so i do have an up to date virus scanner and a firewall, but this stupid virus managed to get in anyway. If it is that easy to bypass the windowz security measurement you think you took, why the hell would you take them then? Apparently it does not make any difference. And since this was the third time i encountered this virus in one week time, i decided to ditch windowz completely.

So, finally a complete desktop switch. I’ve been using linux for years (over a decade i think), but mainly on servers. That is, because of the things i do on my desktop, are a “easier” on windowz. Like movie editing and building vb apps. Yeah i know, vb is kinda lame, but have made those for years. Just the line of work i was in… And i’ve been using linux on my laptop for quite a while, but i don’t do really hard things on my laptop. Mainly writing documents, browsing and listening to music. So, to completely switch is quite a step.

The choice of distro i made is opensuse. I choose this one, cuz that distro was the first one i ever tried to use as a desktop. That was ages ago, where i installed it as a dual boot on the shared house computer. I’ve been a sucker for suse ever since. I’ve tried loads of other distros over time, but as a desktop it is just the smoothest in my opinion. But ey, it is a matter of taste, and in the end it all is kind of the same…

The first thing you have to decide on, when you’ve decided on the distro, is the window manager. In my installation i’ve chosen to go with kde. I’ve been using gnome on my laptop and i really do like it. But i thought it would be nice to have another window manager at my desktop machine, so i can check out and learn that one as well. Installation didn’t go as smoothly as i thought it would be, but after running it in text mode, i received some error messages why. So, corrected those et voila: a brand new desktop!

I was using windowz for a reason, as i mentioned before. Lots of stuff is more easy on windows. It does take some time to get all the stuff you want your machine to do set up right. And you have to want to invest that time. I do want to, so that will work out. I’ve been using open source programs on my windows desktop, so i don’t need to “re-learn” the use of office applications. I do am quite a big fan of photoshop though… And i did check out the gimp, but never forced myself to really dive into it. Cuz i had photoshop, so why should i. Well, i think this is a good moment to “force” myself to learn it. Not a bad thing i guess.

Most of my files are stored online in some way or another. My mail, calendar and documents are @ google, my bookmarks at del.icio.us and my pics are back-upped at smugmug. Although i have not yet moved all of my pics there… Moments like this make you aware of the back-up importances. Luckily i have a bunch of external hard disks as well, so it does not matter if i install new stuff on my machine and format my internal hd. A good thing i did that!

Since i installed it just yesterday, i did not have the time to find alternatives for all the windowz things i did yet. I did find some stuff however. Installed songbird for my music, digikam for my pics and grabit on wine for my nzb downloads. Oh yeah, openftd for nzb search. Some stuff i have to look into are the dotnet development environment (yeah, i do develop stuff in dotnet…) with mono and i have to find some replacement for my video editing software. I guess that is going to be a tough one…

I will not give up and will make linux my desktop of choice. Just had it with that windowz! Not just because of the virusses, but also for it getting slower every single day that you use it. Let’s see if linux can live up to my expectations as a total desktop replacement!

I had a discussion the other day, about my download behavior. This person was telling me, that people like me destroy “the industry”. With the industry, he meant the music and movie industry. I really don’t agree with him. Sure, i understand that it has to be funded someway. Somebody has to pay, so the artist can make a living. But do the seriously need 10 cars and big ass houses with 7 swimming pools? Yeah, i watch mtv cribs once in a while… The music industry has neglected the world. They thought they could keep on making money the way they’ve done for decades. Well, if they would have innovated, they might still have been making money. But they gave us the cd 20 years ago. And guess what? They still offer cd’s! The cd looks exactly the same as it did in the late 80’s! And it is still the case, that if you buy a cd, you get 2 awesome songs and 10 crap ass songs that you are never ever going to play.

And i will not pay for an old skool media carrier containing 80% of crap that i will never ever listen to. Anyway, i think the era of making zillions of dollars with singing is over. Times have changed. They should not cry and yell about it, but just take their loss and move on. I’m sure that real artists will make it anyway. And i’m also sure that real artists don’t want 10 ferrari’s. They just want to make music.

The same goes for the movie industry. Why do actors need to receive 20 million bucks to play in some movie? That is just bullshit. The movie companies have to realize that, but ey, that is just my opinion. I do not believe that it will kill the industry if i download. Because i DO pay. I pay when i go to the cinema. And i do pay when i go to a concert. But i only go and pay if i REALLY like it. If it is not that good, why would i pay loads for it? It is just the survival of the fittest i think. If an artist makes awesome music and loads of peeps luv it, if the throw a concert, it will be sold out asap. And if they sell t-shirts, everybody wants them. So they do not have to worry. And if a film company makes great movies, everybody will go and see it and they will make loads of money. Look at the latest batman!

So, i don’t think i destroy anything by not paying for it. Me and people like me are just forcing the industry to innovate. Something they should have done way sooner! If i can stream on demand movies, i will have no problem at all paying a small amount of money for it. Stores like i-tunes are great as well, but as long as they DRM the files you buy, i’m not going to buy it. Fuck DRM! If i buy it, it is mine and i decide what i do with it!

I asked him, if he has a subscription to a newspaper. He told me that he reads everything on the internet, so has no need for a paper. He is no better then i, because he is not paying to see the news, but does make papers go out of business. He is forcing the papers to innovate as well. I think they face the same problems as the music and movie business.

Well, times change, get over it. Times always change and people will always go out of business. It was the same with the steam engine manufacturers, the fur-coat sowers and loads of others. If i don’t keep innovating myself, i’ll be out of a job in a few years as well. And nobody else to blame then myself.

Well, that is just my opinion. Oh yeah, and it’s monday. I tend to bitch on that day…

Yes people, i’m addicted. A true junkie! What am i addicted on? For starters i smoke. And i smoke a lot! I started smoking when i was 16 years old and still a naive dumb ass. Oh man, do i regret the day i thought smoking was cool. If i could do it over, i would have never ever started smoking. Sure, i’ve had a good time with my nicotine companions, but most of the time, it just plain old sucks! It sucks to get nervous when you’re out of cigs, it sucks when you get to a non-smokers party, it sucks if you have no matches but in desperate need for nicotine! I really cannot name any advantages of smoking, except one: you have a legit reason to leave your desk once in a while.

So, why the hell am i still a smoker then? That is because it is an ADDICTION. And addictions are kinda hard to get over. And don’t give me that crap ass advice that peeps who never smoked always give. Because when you have never been addicted, you can never ever imagine what it must be like. I remember seeing an episode of Oprah one day (yes i know, but ey, i was zapping). On this episode there were three “wise” men. These “wise” men were telling the audience how to quit smoking. The only thing was, that none of those dudes had ever smoked one cigarette. So how the hell can they tell others what it feels like? It is the same as me telling a woman what it is to be pregnant. I can and will never know what that feels like! Anyway, i hate those kinda peeps!

So, it IS hard to get over. It really is. But i’m really thinking seriously about it, because i’ve been smoking for 17 years now! More then halve my life, i’ve been a lame ass junkie! Geez, that is really dumb, ain’t it? But smoking is not the only addiction i have. I’m also heavy into caffeine. I drink loads of coffee and even more loads of cola. It is coke light\zero, so no sugar, but still man! First of all it costs me loads of money and secondly, it cannot be very good for you. Sure, drinking loads of coke will make sure that i never get rusty, but i think that is the only advantage. And because my heart is not healty, i better don’t drink that much caffeine… Well, my cardiologist is telling me it is not very smart.

It appears, that if someone telling you how bad your addiction is, how more addicted you get. It is a funny thing, those addictions. The human brain really works in weird ways. Addictions come in many forms and i believe none of them are healthy. I know peeps who are addicted to sports. Sure, sports is fun and healthy, but it is not when you are addicted!

I should really quit all this shit. No mo coke, coffee and cigs for me. I want to quit it all and i WILL quit it all this monday! Monday i will get a tea drinking, not smoking fairy. Why not now you ask? Because i just can’t. Remember, i’m a junkie! And junkies get nervous when they have to give up their addictions. And nervous junkies smoke twice as much! And i know peeps are laughing and telling each other “haha, look at this junkie loser! he will never ever quit his addictions!”. Well, fuck that! I’m gonna do it, cause i’m tired of it! I have hardly any pictures of me without me holding a cigarette. Besides my childhood pics that is of course.

So, healthy man here monday! YEEHAA, i CAN and WILL do IT dammit!

I have never been into all this socializing websites, up until recently. I have a colleague, who is totally into that stuff and this bloke invited me for some services. And ever since i’m into using these social services, i do actually like it quite a lot! It’s not just rambling about loads of nothing, but it actually provides me with very useful information! It appears that there are a lot of smart peeps on those networks. If you pop some question there, most of the times, you are provided with very useful information. I love that!

But i wonder if it does not go over the top. I mean, there are a lot of social networks out there. And i’ve tested loads of them. But most of these networks are just being updated trough specialized “update as many networks as you can” tools, like hellotxt and ping.fm. This makes me wonder why i’m on all those networks anyways. Sure, there are a few of them that i actually “use”, but most are just being updated. There is no interaction at all. I love plurk, which i use often. And of course there is good old twitter, which i also like. And recently i discovered rejaw, which i think might have potential.

But really, it is impossible to use all those services actively. I mean, jaiku, pownce, brightkite, identi.ca and dozens of others. No way you can keep up with all if it! Unless you really have nothing to do all day long. It is funny though, that you meet the same people at most of the other networks as well. The peeps on plurk are on twitter as well.

I think many people face the same problems, with this overload of social services… And as much as i like those networks, it is really overkill. I think they all want to be the next twitter or something. It annoys me actually. Although many people on these networks are using multiple of them, you will always have friend A on network X and friend B on network Y. In my opinion, one of these networks should “win” and have the whole world using it. That way you don’t have scattered information, but all in one place. I guess that it will never happen, but ey, a man can dream, can’t he?

Just curious, what networks are you on and are you using it actively? Because to me, all it does (with a few exceptions), is giving me stress! It is just impossible to keep up!

It really does! I’m participating in translation work for plurk. I help those guys out with the dutch translations, together with another dedicated plurk user. It is great to be able to do something back for the community that is provided to you for free! That is why, when i make use of open source or free software/services, try to do something back. I think it is important to do so, because that is something that will keep those communities alive. And it ain’t such time consuming that you are not able to get anything else done. Because i know, GTD is hard!

I can recommend all of you, to participate in projects you make use of. If you can that is of course… Well, just a mini-post, sharing a little thought.

At work i’m working on a project to replace the existing PBX-s with open source ones. I really did not know half what i got myself into when i started. The obvious PBX of choice was Asterisk of course. I did not take long to make that decision, because there is not really much else out there. I started of with a bare Debian install, on which i installed Asterisk (for which i advice to read some documentation first!). The installing was is not really the hard part, it’s the configuration. Sure, if you’re a telephony master, this should not really give you any problems at all. But for me, not into telephony at all (besides calling around a bit on my cell), it appeared to be quite a harsh task to set it all up right.

I realized it actually was a good idea to read the book Asterisk: The Future of Telephony.. This really contains lots of useful information and got me going a long way. Of course you should check out the occasional forum here and there, because every situation needs a slightly different approach, but it does provide some very good general information. The company i work for, makes use of ISDN lines, and would like to keep it that way. Not for all calls, but for loads of them. Then thing is, we have an analogue infrastructure already and don’t want to spend thousands and thousands on new equipment, while the old equipment still works pretty well. So, why you want to switch your PBX then, you might ask? Well, that is because the ones we have now, are rentals. And we would like to gain some more control over the PBX-s then we have now.

Because we make use of the analogue infrastructure, choosing the right hardware was the next challenge. Remember, i’m a software developer, with no telephony experience, and certainly no telephony hardware experience! This is a totally new world for me. A damn interesting one, but still a new one. After some research i decided to go for Xorcom Astribanks. Why? Well, because it seems to be easily installable and can be replace rapidly if one breaks. If i would make use of PCI-cards, first of all, i would need a really big ass server, cause those cards are HUGE! And not being able to replace it very easily if something breaks is a high ranked reason, as mentioned before.

I do still have to order the Astribanks, which will be happening this week. And if i actually got the, i can tell you if they provide the power i need and if it does work as good as i expect them to. I’ll get back on that one. Because i gained quite a lot of knowledge of the Asterisk configuration files and how to use them, it does not mean that my colleagues have this knowledge as well. That is not really a problem, but i had to find a way to make it easy for other people to manage and/or deploy an Asterisk PBX as well. That is why my choice goes to PBXinaFlash.

The reason i made that decision is, that it is quite easy to install and configure. It consists of an ISO that can be installed straight onto an empty server. Just say YES a few times, and you’ve got it up and running in no time. And because time is always a crucial thing, why would you make it difficult for yourself? I’ve played a bit with it, and i have to say that it rocks! It is fairly well documented as well, and you can find quite some info at nerdvittles. The book PiaF without Tears appeared to be quite a good read as well.

My company owns several call centers as well, where we plan to implement another system based on Asterisk. First the PBX at the main office has to be up and running, before it will be rolled out into the rest of the organization. I will try to post some regular updates on the progress here. Here is a list of links that i found useful during my “research”.

• Howto: Installing Asterisk on Debian Etch
• Beginning an affair with Asterisk
• Asterikast
• Asterisk itself… duh!
• Get realtime CDR from Asterisk
• The softphone i like
• PBX in a Flash
• nerdvittles
• adhearsion, looks promising
• Asterisk tweets
• Digium tweets

This stuff really got me enthusiastic. I’m gonna implement this stuff at home as well for sure! Happy Asterisking!

That is the ammount of crons i’m allowed to have at my new hosting company. And since i’ve got 25 of them, i think i should use 25. The only thing is, that i have to think of 25 uses for the tabs… Well, i do know one i want to create shortly. I host my moblog over at smugmug, where i post pics from my phone by email. I would like to post those pics to some other services, so my shots get some awareness. I’m gonna make some script that will check my moblog rss over at smugmug every 5 minutes or so, and if it contains a new pic: post it to other services. No idea when i’m ever gonna produce that script, cuz i’m not that well into having spare computer time. Well, not this week anyway. But i will create it as soon as i can!

So, that’s one use down, 24 to go! I could create a tab, that will check if the site is still up, and if it’s down, send a text to my mobile. But that one will never work, cuz if the site is down, i guess the script will be down as well. Not a good idea that one! Another one i could create, is a script that checks who i lend movies to and are not returned yet. I could make the script spam those dvd lenders to hurry up! But if i want to do that, i first have to build some dvd library… Geez, another option out da window.

It appears not to be very easy to fill up 25 tabs with cool scripts. Maybe it is because it is monday morning and my creativity has not started up yet. I will be thinking about this, this week. Guess creativity will be better tomorrow. But ey, if anyone got a sweet idea for the 24 cron slots i’ve got left, please let me know!

Always good, a friday! First of all, it is snack day at our company, so having bad food. But the thing with bad food is that it tastes great! And once a week should not really be a problem right? The other good thing about friday is that it is the last day of the week before the weekend. I realize some people have to work weekends, but i don’t, so for me it is the last day. I can stay up late tonight, without having to worry about the next day alarm clock buzz. That is, cause there ain’t any! Tonight i can do whatever i want. Not that i don’t do that otherwise, but still, not having to get up early the next day makes it way more relaxed. So, what are the plans for the weekend? Well, since my gf is having her birthday next week, she will celebrate it this weekend. She has planned a pick-nick for sunday. Now i really, really hope that the weather is going to be awesome sunday! We’ve got about 40-50 friends coming and you don’t want to serve them food in the rain. Yesterday it was super great weather here, but today it is kinda not. The thing is, you just never can be sure. Nature does what it wants and will certainly not make it a great day sunday just because we’ve got a pick-nick planned… We’re just hoping for the best! The rest of the weekend will be consumed by preparing the pick-nick i think. And relaxing of course! We’re going to get all the groceries tonight and have to prepare a bit tomorrow and the rest we’ll do sunday morning. You can imagine, preparing a 40-50 peeps pick-nick is quite a bit of work. But that’s no problem, we like throwing parties! And cause we’ve got really great friends, it is going to be great for sure! Just help us hoping for sunshine, loads of it!

Geez, i better could have called this post “pick-nick rambles”. But then again, funky friday sounds way better!

That’s a thing i always want for myself, but just not really do… I’m a hardcore smoker, coffee drinker and cocacola junkie. I suppose those things are not really doing great things for your body. Everyday i tell myself to have a tea and water day and try to smoke a few less cigs. But it’s just not happening. I know, it’s something u have to do yourself, being strong and all that crap. I guess i’m not the only one having trouble to stay on the right path. Why is it so hard to say goodbye to things you’re used to? Hell, i know i can do it, cuz i used to be a big fat guy and now i’m slim. I managed to loose 26 kilos in a few months, so why can’t i change these other things? I always hope to wake up one morning and have changed totally. Well, we all know that ain’t gonna happen, don’t we. I guess most people think that way. Not all of course, just most. I see it all around me, people making big plans, but never actually take the action. And just planning ain’t getting you anywhere. Unless you’re a professional planner… duh! I’m just a master in postponing. But sometimes you realize your life is a bit too damn short to be postponing, isn’t it? And even now i realize this at this very moment, i’m having a coke and a coffee on my desk… Are you having trouble with this as well, or is it just the lame me?

Geez, it’s too damn good weather to be this down! Gonna make it a good day after all, even if that is a day with coffee, coke and smoke!

Yeah, been to the cinema last night, so see the Dark Knight! Yes ladies and gentleman, i’ve seen it. As have zillions of others i guess. Geez, what a crowded cinema that was man! The lines stacked up way outside the entrance! That cinema needs some serious crowd management courses! I really don’t understand, that if a movie is being played there for over a week and it is as crowded as it was yesterday every day, they do not take some precautions. I mean, one freakin’ cashier? What the hell is that about? You cannot have one cashier to handle hundreds of ticket-willing people! It’s just like the supermarket. All cashiers appear to have their breaks on prime-time… Anyway, i spend mo time in lines then i was actually sitting and watching the movie. For the next popular movie i will take a day off and go watch it on a tuesday morning or something…

K, enough whining! The movie was absolutely fucking great! That joker guy was an awesome character! That Heath Ledger died too damn young. He absolutely did a great job. The tension in the movie was well build and when something “scary” was going on, you really got kinda scared. So, after all it was worth to wait in line that long. And ey, got me a big bag of m&m’s. That always makes me feel good!;)