Chris Drumgoole

Last night, I installed Ubuntu 7.10. I had 7.4 installed previously, but I decided to do a complete reinstall. This included repartitioning the drive into, what I think, is a better configuration.

I (again) pasted what I wrote in the forums of the Beijing Linux Users Group:

A few observations:

1. Wow - Compiz rocks! Those who are allured by Mac’s “beautiful visuals”, they need to check Compiz out. I have no idea why the package compizconfig-settings-manager isn’t installed by default - took me a while to figure that out - I wanted the cube!!

2. The nvidia drivers were already installed. It just worked!!! This is a big improvement over 7.4. Yes, it complained it was a restricted driver, but that was easy to turn off by enabling it.

3. Getting the codecs to work, while straight forward, the connection to medibuntu sucks. So damn slow.

4. This is slightly related to 3. I like amarok to manage my music, so installing it was a piece of cake. But it didn’t recognize the xine engine untul I installed xine-ui. I didn’t see this in documentation anywhere (maybe it should be a prereq for amarok, or anything that uses xine)

5. I decided to go for the 4 partition approach: /boot, swap, /, and /home, where /home is by far the largest. I decided to screw the GParted route to try to resize, etc. I just backed up the data on my USB HD and copied things over once Ubuntu was installed.

Check my previous 7.4 installation post for a comparison report at http://www.beijinglug.org/en/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&Itemid=25&func=view&id=811&catid=2

I still need to check the webcam support in the other clients to see if that has been improved.

Other than that, I really like how Ubuntu / Linux is coming along. I really don’t see a reason to spend the money to get Winblows or Mac. This is really a full fledged OS!

I documented my installation and configuration efforts at http://docs.cdrum.com/index.php?title=Ubuntu_7.10

In response to my previous post on questioning the use of services like feedburner (especially when feedburner doesn’t really work in China)..

I think those China blogs who aggregate (link) with Chinalyst, you may want to change your feed URL in the Chinalyst configuration for your site if you have previously provided a feedburner link (I’m talking to you, Danwei).

The problem still remains when I see your post in a Chinalyst feed and I want to click on it to be sent to your site to read more, feedburner gets in the way.  You know the rest…

I’m up at 5am on Saturday - need to get ready for a Toasmasters China annual conference.

Unfortunately, it happens to be way the heck outside of Beijing.   Bus leaves at 6:30

Back around 11:pm tonight - this will be a great way to finish up what jet lag I have left. ?

O.k, before you get smart with me and say something stupid like “Hey, Chris - just don’t use the web” or “Hey, Chris - why don’t you leave China - then you won’t have this problem…”, I have this to say to you: “Um, lameass, why don’t you just shoot yourself.”

I wrote a post about 3 weeks ago about the blocking of (access adjustments made to) Feedburner URLs in China. Rick from Feedburner was nice enough to submit a comment to my post. Rick basically said they know of the problem and are trying to work with the ISPs in China to find a workaround. (ok, those were my words from what I remember he wrote, I actually haven’t read his comment for ~3 weeks).

Well, so far, it’s still blocked. Best of luck to Feedburner/Google in hope these guys will start thinking rationally… Ain’t gonna work.

So, I ask this question: Why don’t website owners just host their own feeds? Many of these blogs, such as wordpress or moveable type, have the mechanics built-in already!

Could it be these Website owners want to get an accurate number of subscribers? Sorry, last I checked, feed subscriptions are passive. So the number of subscribers Feedburner provides (such as “you have 3823 subscribers”) is bogus. Please. Correct me if I’m wrong.

I don’t see any other reason to use Feedburner, exclusively. (Again, please, someone shed some light on this). Perhaps you want to monetize your feeds by placing ads? There are other ways to do this! (i.e. adding adsence code in your feeds).

If people insist on using Feedburner, or similar, why can’t you also provide a link to your original feed URL as well. Richard wised up and did this! (Thank’s Richard!) Bjorn also wrote about this.

What really erks me is China-focused blogs using Feedburner, only. Do these guys have any clue what’s going on in China??!

• Chinalyst - A nice feed aggregator for China-specific English blogs. Their main feed is using Feedburner. Are these guys even in China?
• Shanghaiist - You are a blog “about Shanghai”
• There’s many more, but I don’t think I need to waste my time listing all of them. Go to Chinalyst and look for yourself.

Let’s all wake up and not alienate your readers in China! (Those of us who are interested in China, who live in China, and who read your China-focused blogs)

And no, using Tor is not always an option, thank you.

Update Oct, 20:  Joel from Danwei left a rather sarcastic comment for this post which kind of put the jokes on me…  I apologize for somehow overlooking the fairly clear “china safe” feed links.  But my original question stands: why not host your own feed?

Check this bad boy out:

See Techcrunch’s story, as well as this Chinese Developer’s twitter page who allegidly first found out about it, or discovered it.

Techcrunch interestingly points out that both China NetCom and Baidu are listed on the NY Stock Exchange.  Interesting… Standards?  If you guys want to play with the big boys, you’ve got to act like them and follow the rules. M’kay?

This post will probably be outdated any minute, but…

Today, October 18, the new Ubuntu Linux should be out.

Here’s a screen shot of the header image of the main page.

So, where is it?! 0 days left, come on guys!

Perhaps they forgot Asia sees the 18th before the rest of the world?

My holiday has begun. I left Beijing on Monday at 9am or so (well, actually our flight was delayed due to impenitence in the control tower) . I was pleasantly surprised to experience a super quick checking/immigration/security process - from taxi to lounge in under 15 minutes.

Luckily, the delay didn’t cause a problem in Tokyo for the connection.

I just arrived at Minneapolis airport and am waiting for my connecting flight to Chicago.

The flight from Tokyo was pretty crappy. Here’s why:

Alcohol not FREE

I fly Northwest, so as of sometime last year, no more free alcohol on any Intl flight to/from Japan. (That’s pretty much all their Asian routes.) On top of that, I totally forgot and didn’t change any money to USD or Yen - I only had RMB - and of course the flight from Tokyo to the U.S. only accepts Yen or USD. damn. Had to do it sober.

The negatives of an exit row seat

I normally get exit seats as they have lots of leg room. See this page for the seat map. My seat was 35B. So, the guy in 36A would often slip in between me and the door so he wouldn’t disturb his neighbors in 36B and C. Well genius, you disturbed me.

Oh, and the seat felt a bit slanted - i.e. not totally flat. So it was quite uncomfortable - that on top of the already slightly narrow design due to the tray table being located in the arm rest.

The stupid thing is, I sat in this seat once before (last year sometime) and experience similar shortcomings. I told myself never again. What did I do? I chose the dang seat again. So, word to the wise - don’t sit in that seat!

Asshole neighbors

The guy next to me in 35C was an American, mid to late 60’s. Real piece of work. That means, he’s annoying. Big time. You see, I decided to be social this time, as I usually sit in my seat and not say a word because I hate giving the whole “why I live in China story”. But, when he came to sit down (he was the last one on the plane as his connecting flight from Bangkok to Tokyo was late), he seemed like a nice guy, so I said”Hello”.

Hah. I learned my lesson. He immediately said “Hey, you’re a big guy, I don’t want to share my seat with ya - make sure you stay on your side.”. O.k., he said it in a slightly positive way, but, I’m sorry… You just don’t say shit like that. Period. So, I decided not to say a word to him the rest of the flight. Asshole.

As this was an exit row, the flight attendants have a bench to sit at during take off and landings. Well, Mr. A-Hole was pleasant to them, talking about what their travel schedules were, how long they’ve been with the airlines, etc.. You know, useless conversation points. He then proceeded to mention to them, in a comical way, what he told me about staying to my side of the seat. This guy’s a freaken comedian. I looked at him, smiled, then rolled my eyes and went back to watching whatever was on my ipod.

For the record, when he was asleep, I noticed he encroached on my side a few times. At that point, he reminded me of Senator Craig - you know the gay Senator (who claims he wasn’t propositioning the undercover police officer, and that no, he isn’t gay), coincidently in a men’s room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, the very airport we were flying to. Must be something in the water?

Any way, from the eavesdropping I did, he apparently travels to Bangkok twice a year to see “friends”.  Sure… I bet he’s a sex tourist, probably one who targets underage lady-boys.  Sicko.

Done with that crap, for now…

Any way, my next flight is first class - free upgrade.  But, it’s only an hour, so…