I'm still using that old Panasonic Toughbook as the server. It's been a good Linux learning tool. I have been playing around with some of the Turnkey Linux appliances in VirtualBox and really enjoying the fact that they've gone through the trouble of installing all sorts of software on top of Ubuntu server 8.04. I have used the LAMP, Drupal, Joomla and a couple of others. I liked the LAMP one enough to download the iso and install it on the Toughbook.

Now, some may say "but you could just install Ubuntu server yourself and get all that running." While that is true the Turnkey was just so easy that it let me get in and focus on some other things I wanted to work on.

I think this will be as far as I go tonight... I am actually testing the WordPress app for Android. Hey, it gets a post up here and that's good in my book.

I started to follow along month to month as he showed how to interact with twitter via shell script culminating in a fully working twitter bot that can parse it's stream and send replies to queries that were sent to it. This really piqued my interest as I see potential in what a twitter bot can do in regard to my job. So I am setting out to adapt his shell script to fit my needs.

I have finally got the script running after a few edits to match my directory structure and also had to re-learn how to set up a cron job. Now begins the task of customizing the script to add the functionality that I need.

This has been a fun way to dive back into shell scripts after not really doing anything with the shell since that as I am trying to learn Linux to be able to be more than just a user.

I've been busy with all the work that has been coming into my little department and that has kept me feeling worn down. Don't go thinking I'm complaing about that, I'm not as it equates very well to job security. I'm also getting close to launching a website for a co-workers side business, nothing extravagant or anything just something that gets the job done.

There's a whole lot of crap coming up that I want to do but will more than likely miss. First thing is Bruce Campbell showing his new movie 'My Name is Bruce' in either Hartford or Cambridge, whichever I would choose to attend. It would rock to get him to sign my copy of 'Tachyon: The Fringe'! (Yes I still have that game, box and all) Next up, mc chris is going to be in town and damn it I want to see that too. I've been consistently amused and entertained by his music.

Well there's that... my update of the week.

p.s. I'm looking to get my hands on a larger Wacom tablet, if anyone out there has a very generous offer. I say generous because I don't have much disposable cash at the moment and I was looking into some off-name brand of tablet.

I went to see Eagle Eye today… the department I work for sprung for the movie as a reward for a really good quarter. It’s nice to work for people that are able to show their employees a good time. As for the movie, I would like to report that it wasn’t all that bad. It was a solid action flick and was entertaining. It seemed like the movie was an updated version of WarGames albeit not as cool. Yes I think that WarGames was a cool movie… now I’m going to have to talk about that instead of this brand new movie that I have just seen! Yes, the movie that validated all the computer stuff I was into back when I saw it was cool. I’m just going to leave it at that because it’s the same damn geek story every one else tells isn’t it. I definitely don’t see this Eagle Eye movie having the same effect on people. It seems as though the characters are hard to identify with thus severing any personal connection to the audience that may have been made.

Not much else to write about… good night!

First up, I really want to play with gOS. It looks like a tight little Linux distro that I might enjoy. A co-worker of mine ended up trying the gOS live cd in an attempt to breathe a little life into his laptop. He found that the laptop took an install of the gOS on the hard drive, something that Windows has been crashing on for a while now (tried multiple install disks as well as a couple hard drives). Seems odd that he could install this operating system and not Windows but such is life with computers at least he now has a laptop that is operable. I dig the widget engine and all that, plus being built on top of Ubuntu doesn't hurt either. Burning image to disk right now.

Man, I have a ton of Linux discs scattered around my computer room... weird, I still keep using Windows primarily. Too many games I guess, that and I have to share my systems and MS makes the comfortable product that people are used to.

I also thought a bit about last nights debate. I want to state that I have found NPR's political twitter stream extremely handy during the debate as well as the race. If only for the fact checking, the feed is totally worth following. Here is the feed! I have to say that my mind is already made up and I know who I will cast my vote for never-the-less I watch and follow the progress of the campaigns. The most troublesome issue for me was John McCain's treatment of Barack Obama's support of a bill, which did not pass, that would allocate $3 million towards a new projector for the Adler planetarium. McCain called it an 'overhead' projector which takes away a substantial amount of the meaning of projector when it comes to a planetarium's projector. We all know what and overhead projector looks like and well all know that there is no way on of those things could display the features of the night sky. In digging a bit deeper one finds that the cost to replace the projector was a lot more that they asked for and the planetarium was also seeking out the rest of the funds to cover the additional cost from private investors.
The big deal about this is that it shows just how anti-science and anti-thought that these people are. Seriously, what's wrong with learning? These are the same people who think people and dinosaurs co-existed! Granted it works for Barney and Fred bur there is no way primitive man could survive!

There is more but I just woke up from being passed out from being tired.

=

So that´s it... I will write something, daily, no matter how trivial. Just like today´s rant of a post. Sounds good to me.

I was just thinking about the question posed by Leo Laporte; "Is radio dead?"

Yup, he asked that right here on the Pownce but that is not what I'm thinking about. What has me writing this wordy diatribe is what I wrote for a response. I apparently have an affinity for talk radio, makes sense due to the amount of podcasts I listen to. Really though I listen to more people babble on than I do to good ol' music.

Seriously, my commute to work has me listening to Thom Hartmann, who I must say is one of the most brilliant people I have heard on the radio. It is a show that is in stark contrast to the show I listen to on the ride home which happens to be Coast to Coast AM hosted by George Noory.

Is it the fact that I am older now or just the fact that I do not enjoy the auditory feces people call music these days. I know I'm being a bit harsh but on occasion I feel that way especially when you can just get on the internet and discover and download music you do like. Which makes me want to mention www.archive.org mainly because what I do listen to tends to be bands that allow tapers and many of their live shows are posted there. Good times.

Well that's about it. I think it's just a matter of where you are in life and at this point I would rather listen to people blabbing.

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