Category Archives: Linux

Linux

Back to Bloglines

For all of Robert Scoble’s complaints about Bloglines, it fits my needs quite well.  I have been using it for some time now, but I took a break and tried running Gregarius on my server.

It has some nice features, but after several weeks I have given up on its current manifestation. It has a lot of potential, but for now it’s not ready for my needs. The clincher is that I can’t read my feeds on my Treo 600 using Gregarius. It’s way too slow — there’s no WAP/low-bandwidth mode.  Bloglines works quite well in that respect.

So long Gregarius, it’s been fun. Maybe I’ll try it again in six months or so.

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File Transfer and Backup with GNU rsync

Our lab maintains an extensive wiki for internal documentation and coordination. With all of the hurricane shenanigans, new interest in automated backups to removable drives was expressed. Since I already do that, I wrote up how to do it on the wiki for the rest of the lab.

I think it’s a decent howto, so I decided to copy it to my wiki and share it with the world: Automated Backups with rsync. I also posted my older writeup on the basics of transferring files with rsync: Transferring Files with rsync. They’re both under the newly-created Tech Tips section of my personal site, brocktice.com.

Running Resumes Post – The First

Today I did manage to get up at 05:00, run from around 05:15 to 05:35, and get to work by 07:15ish. I have the actual time in my log, but alas, I am too lazy to pull it out.

Swimming is important. Swimming makes the upper body strong. I really need to look up the pool schedule here at Wash U. I went through all of the trouble and expense of buying swim trunks and some goggles. I might as well use them.

Work today consisted mainly of filling out an AHA fellowship proposal, which I’m not exactly finished with. I’d say I’m 2/3 finished with filling in the forms, and then comes reference forms, mailing reference forms, inserting other documents into the pdf using Adobe Acrobat™, etc.

I also spent some time trying to figure out why Hermenegild’s laptop won’t run our visualization software correctly. It seems to be some kind of problem with a crossmojination of OpenGL libraries of one sort or another. After spending about an hour on it, and checking through all of the usual suspects, I left it to him to fiddle around with it and do some more googling. I’m a little disappointed in Ubuntu on this one, but it could be a cruddy chipset from Intel. It’s the i915 video chip, so if you have any Linux DRI/DRM/OpenGL experience with that chip, please do let me know.

That’s about all for now. There’s some musing going on on the Internets™ about whether Microsoft is really making a change with this online services crap. My guess is, no. They always put the cart before the horse. They design things first to bring in money, and second to perform a useful function. This is not the way of the coming world. The useful function has to be the goal. Making money is artfully tacked on in the background. Not that it shouldn’t be thought of… it’s more of a design issue with the function part.

Anyway, I’m waxing poetic. Here are today’s stats:

Sleep Water Exercise Coffee Alcohol
08:00 h 2.364 L 00:18 1/2 cup equiv. 1 drink