All I can say is AWESOME!

The ePUB format is an open ebook standard open to all publishers. Several software e-reader software packages already exist that read ePUB books including Stanza (http://www.lexcycle.com) for Mac, Windows and iPhone/iPod touch and Adobe’s Digital Editions (http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions). The one hardware reader that I’m aware of right now is the Sony Reader PRS-505 and PRS-700 or newer models.

I have the PRS-505 and have been waiting for a publisher to release titles in the open format for a couple months now. I’m very pleased that there are so many titles available now. Several other sites have free, out-of-copyright texts such as http://www.feedbooks.com, http://www.web-books.com and http://www.munseys.com. Sony’s own site sells thousands of books in their own proprietary format however, I’m glad there’s now source of high quality modern published works in an open format! Did I already say ‘awesome‘?

Presentation: This month’s meeting will be a combined meeting with the Utah Database User Group (http://udbug.org) on “why you love your database in 15 minutes”. Several 15 minute short talks about databases that run on Linux will be presented. Hope to see everyone there!

Time and place:

Date: Wednesday Oct 22, 2008
Time: 7:10pm
Place: Warnock Engineering Building (WEB) room 101 (Previously known as EMCB)
Cost: $0.00. Zip. Nada.

Directions/Parking:
Directions - [http://www.map.utah.edu/index.jsp?find=62]
Parking can be found just East of the WEB building and there is a big lot just North of the Merrill Engineering building (MEB).
Parking is free after 6:00 (Based on the signs posted. Always check in case this changes.)

Special thanks go to:
U of U for providing the meeting room.
Various Volunteers

Enlarge image

Getting ready to head home for the evening, last night (Sept. 18, 2008), I packed up my stuff, changed into my biking gear and headed out to where my bike had been securely locked while I was at work. I was a bit disappointed to find that my rear tire on my recumbent bike was flat. I had plenty of patches though, being an occasional commuter, I like to think I am prepared for such events. I removed the wheel and got the inner tube removed, patched and replaced in about 1o minutes. After pumping and pumping for much longer that it should have taken I noticed that it wasn’t holding more than 30psi and quickly dropped to nothing once I stopped. An hour later and 5 holes patched on the ancient rubber band I was kind enough to call an inner tube and I decided that there was no fixing the old oxidized piece of rubber.

The tube is about two or three years old and it turns out that my removing it from the tire stretched and cracked it, probably creating more holes that I had patches. Even if I did fix the ones I’d found, there’s no guarantee that I wouldn’t create more when re-installing the tube or that I wouldn’t get part way home before feeling that I was pushing my bike through sand on a beach as a new hole decided to show up and the tire deflates. I thought about any friends that might have a truck that could pick me up and called Debbi to whine about my situation (who doesn’t have a truck, but I just wanted to talk with her anyway). I knew however, that I’d just have to come back in the morning. My car is in the shop this week getting painted. Its supposed to be finished today. I found a body shop close to work so that I could commute on my bike and easily pick up my jeep when it was finished. Thinking that I’d have to at least get myself back to the area in the morning before any bike shops were open, I thought finding a way home seemed pretty useless.

Seeing that the sun was about half an hour from setting and no bike stores open at the time, I packed up and spent the night at the office on the most uncomfortable bed in the world. The building I work in has “health rooms” which are like small hotel rooms with a table, chair and a small bed for the employees when they are sick or work late and need a place to crash. Unfortunately, the cheap cot I slept on last night reminded me of the bed in Jerry Seinfeld’s parent’s condo in Florida. Everyone who slept on it ended up not being able to walk the next day with back problems (The Pen, The Cadillac) . The bed I slept in was sunken in the middle like a giant potato chip. I felt like I was being being bent into the shape of a banana all night long. The springs were uneven and hard so lying on my side was actually quite painful. The pillow (or what they seem to want to call a pillow) was almost completely flat and provided no support whatsoever for my head. I woke up with my neck feeling much worse than it did the night before. It was feeling fine last night. It’s not this morning.

I tossed and turned all night waking up several times and finally gave up trying to get any kind of good sleep at 6am. I walked back down the hall to my office and started working.

I am walking-distance from a theater in a mall so I decided to to see a movie last night (seeing as I didn’t have much else to do that was not work related). I saw Dark Night which started at 8pm. It was the only thing showing at a decent time - everything else either had already started or didn’t start till nearly 9:30 or 10pm. It was the second time I saw it and it was as good this time as the first. The nice thing about watching it last night was that there were only about 10 other people in the theater. I walked back from the theater to my office in the dark.

This morning about 9:00am the body shop called. My Jeep wont be done till next Wednesday.

Sept. 17, 2008 SLLUG meeting: Using Vyatta to replace Cisco gear

Tristan Rhodes will be presenting this month on using Vyatta to replace Cisco gear:

Presentation:

Vyatta is an open source network appliance that can be used as a router, firewall, and VPN server. Vyatta is based on Debian Linux, but there is no need for Linux knowledge because Vyatta operates just like a network device. Vyatta will allow you to replace your over-priced routers with open source software running on industry standard server hardware. This presentation will demonstrate the capabilities of Vyatta and will include some basic configurations using the command line interface and the web-interface.

Tristan Rhodes recently presented at the UTOSC 2008 conference.

Time and place:

Date: Wednesday September 17, 2008
Time: 7:10pm
Place: Warnock Engineering Building (WEB) room 101 (Previously known as EMCB)
Cost: $0.00. Zip. Nada.

Directions/Parking: Directions - [http://www.map.utah.edu/index.jsp?find=62] Parking can be found just East of the WEB building and there is a big lot just North of the Merrill Engineering building (MEB). Parking is free after 6:00 (Based on the signs posted. Always check in case this changes.)

Special thanks go to:

• Prof. Lepreau and the U of U for providing the meeting room.
  
• Various Volunteers
  

I could have sworn that “a couple” meant two. I think he’s just focused elsewhere - his last day here is tomorrow.

This month’s Salt Lake Linux Users Group meeting will be on KVM, the Kernel Virtual Machine, presented by Stuart Jansen.

Presentation:

KVM, the Kernel Virtual Machine, is a Linux kernel module that turns a normal Linux kernel into a hypervisor. Many kernel developers feel this is a superior design to Xen. Stuart Jansen, from Guru Labs, will discuss virtualization with an emphasis on KVM, its advantages and disadvantages.

More information and links at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel-basedVirtualMachine

Time and place:

    Date:  Wednesday July 16, 2008
    Time:  7:10pm
    Place: Warnock Engineering Building (WEB) room 101
           (Previously known as EMCB)
    Cost: $0.00. Zip. Nada.

Directions/Parking:

Directions - [http://www.map.utah.edu/index.jsp?find=62] Parking can be found just East of the WEB building and there is a big lot just North of the Merrill Engineering building (MEB). Parking is free after 6:00 (Based on the signs posted. Always check in case this changes.)

Special thanks go to:

• Prof. Lepreau and the U of U for providing the meeting room.
• Various Volunteers

I’m always amazed by the generosity of my friends and family at this time of year. With only a week and a half, I not only raised the minimum for participation in this year’s ride but had to change my goal twice! I want to thank everyone who has contributed financially as well as those who support me in other ways each and every year for the MS150! I can’t do it without you and I really appreciate your kindness.

Here’s the original post about the ride and a direct link to my MS150 page.

It really sucks because these are people that I need to communicate with and that I need them to know when I am online. It happens from work and home. I’m using OpenSuse 10.3 x86_64 with pidgin-2.4.1. A google search reveals that this has been going on for sometime and that it has been affecting a lot of people…That’s too bad.

I’m going to be riding the Multiple Sclerosis 150 mile benefit ride this year - again! Many were able to support me through encouragement as well donations to help me reach my fund raising goals. This is also a chance for me to connect with many friends who I haven’t heard from for a long time so drop a line when you get a chance - It would be great to hear from you again.

For those of you who are not aware, each year I participate in the Multiple Sclerosis 150 mile ride in Logan, UT. This ride benefits those with Multiple Sclerosis by funding local as well as national aid programs and research.

As many of you know, I have had a couple close friends that have recently been diagnosed with MS. I’m glad to be riding for them.

Time is short! I only have about a week and a half to achieve my fund raising goal. Check the link below to see how I am doing. It always seems that I put this off way too long :(

If you would like to help me by donating, you can pledge your support sometime this week or next (if possible, before Friday the 27nd of June, when I leave to go to Logan). And by the way, your donations are tax deductible.

Here’s how:

1) You can donate securely on-line. Here is the URL to the National Multiple Sclerosis web site where you can pledge. It’s probably the easiest way to donate since you can do it any time of the day and it’s very convenient.

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/Marc_Christensen

On the bottom of the thermometer fund-raising meter, there is a link that says “Donate to Participant!”. Click it to make a donation.

2) You can donate by getting a check to me personally before Thursday the 26st of June and make the check out to the ‘National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Utah Chapter’.

The last few years I have been able to take some pictures of the rides and put them on my web site and I hope to do it again this year. You can see pictures from past rides here:

http://gallery.mecworks.com/MS150_2006
http://gallery.mecworks.com/MS150_2005
http://gallery.mecworks.com/MS150_2004

Big thanks to everyone who has helped in the past and those who help out this year. One last thing - if all you can do is drop a line and say hi, I’d love to hear from you and catch up!!!!!

Ok everyone, have a great week!

Hi everyone!

Tomorrow night!

Topic:

Marc Christensen will be presenting on the OpenSuse build service: A short tutorial on making cross-distro packages (one set of source/config files produces debs, RPMs for various vendor’s distros) and the power of the build service.

For more information on what the build service is and what it can do for you (regardless of what distro you maintain (for the most part)), see:

• http://en.opensuse.org/Build_Service
• http://en.opensuse.org/Build_Service/cross_distribution_package_how_to
• http://en.opensuse.org/Build_Service/Deb_builds

If you package apps that other people consume such as in and IT environment or OpenSource project or just simply want to make packages available for easy install on one or more Linux distributions, you need to know about the build service.

Time and place:

• Date: Wednesday May 21, 2008
• Time: 7:10pm
• Place: Warnock Engineering Building (WEB) room 101 (Previously known as EMCB)
• Cost: $0.00. Zip. Nada.

Directions/Parking:

Directions - [http://www.map.utah.edu/index.jsp?find=62] Parking can be found just East of the WEB building and there is a big lot just North of the Merrill Engineering building (MEB). Parking is free after 6:00 (Based on the signs posted. Always check in case this changes.)

Special thanks go to:
* Prof. Lepreau and the U of U for providing the meeting room.
* Various Volunteers

Googleearth gallery
   > 2007 Tour de France route
      > Noticed amazing Carcassonne which the route passed by
         > Jump to Wikipedia to learn about Carcassonne
            > A thought leads to Labyrinth the book
               > Which makes me think of the (unrelated) Labyrinth movie
                  > Learn that the fancy manipulation of the ball is called Contact Juggling
                     > Search Youtube for Contact Juggling
                        > Amazing:

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So, I was really upset a month ago when one of my headlights in my Jeep Cherokee went out. It’s not the first time and that’s actually the reason why I was upset. I just replaced both of them one year ago and again, a year before that! For some reason I’ve felt that headlights should last longer than one year (apparently, misguided in these perceptions). They seem that they are not made of tissue and therefore one should expect them to not function like a short term, disposable item.

I know, I should actually be putting less faith in the auto industry in America. If they make things that actually last, they would not be selling any new vehicles. But a year? C’mon!

Last night, after spending an evening watching videos with Debbie I said goodbye, left the doorstep, walked to the car which was parked out on the street. It was very dark, no moon was out. Immediately after starting the car and pulling the round knob to turn on the headlight, *plink*, my other last-of-a-redundant-system headlight burnt out.

I spent the next hour traveling at about 15mph on back roads with my hazard lights blinking. They provided me with barely enough light to see the lines painted on the edge of the road and enough warning for other cars to stay away from me.

My theory is that because I bought the super bright Sylvania SilverStar headlights the last two times, which boast “increased downroad viewing up to 25%, increased sideroad viewing and up to 20% brighter, whiter light”, they actually burn hotter and have a shorter life span. In order to test this theory, today I purchased Sylvania XtraVision High Performance Halogen lights which do not burn as bright. I am hoping that their lower brightness is due to lower temp of the element and will result in increased lifetime.

My 1996 Jeep Cherokee up American Fork Canyon, UT

Meeting Topic:

The Salt Lake Linux Users Group (SLLUG) meeting will be held this week.

Brad Midgley will be presenting about linux handhelds and their wireless tech. He will touch on Bluetooth and talk about linux handhelds from Nokia, Openmoko, and Gumstix and bring them in to show off. Also featuring: ultrahub (usb hub plus xscale cpu), not really a handheld but good fun.

Time and place:

Date: Wednesday Feb. 20th, 2008
Time: 7:10pm
Place: Warnock Engineering Building (WEB) room 101 (Previously known as EMCB)
Cost: $0.00. Zip. Nada.

Directions/Parking:
Directions - [http://www.map.utah.edu/index.jsp?find=62]
Parking can be found just East of the WEB building and there is a big
lot just North of the Merrill Engineering building (MEB).
Parking is free after 6:00 (Based on the signs posted. Always check in
case this changes.)

Special thanks go to:
- Prof. Lepreau and the U of U for providing the meeting room.
- Various Volunteers

Wow, first it’s announced recently that MySQL will be bought by Sun and now Trolltech by Nokia. It’s pretty interesting, as I see Nokia’s primary interest in the embedded market. I wonder if this will translate into less focus on the desktop versions of the GUI tool kit.

The press release from Trolltech can be found on their site.