Time to use a satelite ! Its been around for quite some time now, but it had kind of past me by. Looking at satellite images from the grand canyon was not high on my interest list. But seeing a demo of the application in a computer store did spike my interest. Google earth offers you great satellite images of places all over the world. Nice .. cool .. interesting and even a little addictive. But here at Knightwise.com we don't care for technology because its technology. It has to work for us. So time to put Google earth to work. One of the great things about Google maps and Google earth is that you have a geographical overview of the entire globe. While Google Maps offers the layouts of the streets, Google earth offers you an Arial picture of the area. Combining these two does give you some interesting options.Time to “hack-the-teck” For example : You are going to a concert. With Google maps http://maps.google.com you can find a layout of the roads and even request an how-to-drive-there description to get from where you are to where you are supposed to go. So you head up there and just like everybody else , get caught in the traffic jam towards the concert hall, once you drive in through the entrance of the parking lot you wait in line some more . Then hope there is parking space and so forth.
BUT one of the things you can do with Google EARTH http://earth.google.com is lookup the satellite shot of the area and scan for shortcuts. Perhaps there is an adjacent parking lot somewhere nearby, or a place where you can ditch the car , take a shortcut and be the first in line at the autograph line. Or a little dirt road that’s not on your gps , perhaps even a service road you can use to make a shortcut. Using the visual (satellite) shot of the area gives you extra information that can give you the edge over the dumb masses that just use their gps.
And then some…
If you want to take a peek at some cool Google-Earth shots of my hometown, The castle of Alden Biesen and more .. just take a peek at the Flickr site http://www.flickr.com/photos/knightwise and since we are on the subject : Sign our FRAPPR map at www.frappr.com/knightcast so I know where you guys are from.
Macbook on the way. As the hammering is continuing today while work on the website continues I'm starting to realise this might just (hopefully) be one of my last posts in this current layout. The last post .. get it .. (Queue trumpet).
But no matter, just let us take a quick look at everyday affairs. “out with the mini .. in with the... erm..”I sold one of my two mac mini's last week because I wanted to get me one of those intell macs. Since the Intell Mac mini was released a month ago it was time to upgrade one of the two 'mini-twins' Completely unlike me , instead of ordering the new before having properly sold the old, i decided to wait 'till April first when Apple would be 30. Thinking they would come up with some great promotion or even the release of a new product .. I waited .. and waited .. and .. Nothing. Without even a sigh the 30th birthday passed on the Apple site. No discounts , no new products and 600 euros itching in my pocket for a new mac. So I looked around the second hand market and found some pretty cool deals around. An Imac G5 17" , a 20" Imac , perhaps even a powerbook. Some interesting deals out there (even a lampshade-Model G4) but I decided to bite my lip and bide my time. This week Macrumors.com wrote a tasty article about an upcoming new I-book : http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2006/04/20060407144028.shtml. And I quote : "The upcoming MacBook is said to share internal components with the recently released Mac mini which comes in both Core Solo and Core Duo configurations. The new MacBook will therefore replace both the current 12" and 14" iBooks as well as the 12" PowerBook G4"
I must say .. for this I can have 30 to 60 days of patience. A new Intell based mac-laptop that thanks to Bootcamp can dual-boot windows. I'll buy that for a dollar. Looking at the fun I had with my 12" Ibook (and the snarl on Nyana's face whenever I try to take it away from her) this is definitely on of the best hardware investments I made the last 2 years.
But knowing how happy I am looking forward to what is to come.. I will probably be equally disappointed with the price as Mac hardware can be so damn damn expensive.. but its probably worth it.
Ubuntu Cd's in the mail. Okay , i'm not gonna go off on another Ubuntu Linux Rant once again , cause quite frankly I haven't done didly squat with my Ubuntu laptop these last two days. But since I had ordered the cd's in the mail a few weeks ago I was pleasantly surprised to get a package in the mailbox 'the REAL mailbox' containing a copy of Ubuntu 5.10. Its like totaly for free , no shipping and you have a nice package with all the distributions. Its Tuesday morning right now , about 6.30 AM and I got up a little earlier to have some quiet time to blogg up with you guys. Its been very very hectic these last days. I'm not talking about work / stuff to do .. but also about all the personal stuff thats going down in my life. I haven't been able to write up and do some decent posts about all the 'real life stuff' thats getting in the way of my careless cyber-existence. Quite frankly it has to do with my family, the passing away of my father and all that comes in its wake. I'm a little bit shaken by all of it but don't worry .. I'll be fine .. I'm just not as cyber-focused as I am used to right now. Analogue interferrence from the real world we shall call it. So forgive my occasional Online absence . I will return in full force shortly.I am working on some new stuff for the next podcast so hang in there. She'll be up some time this week. Meantime I am overlooking my super cosy ( but still slightly chaotic ) new office. Nyana and me decided to save on heating costs and improve on quality time together by re-arranging my office into a shared Office / living area. So the room is divided in two giving me half for setting up a very cool workstation with about three different Hosts (on three different Os's) and a nice sitting area where Nyana can lounge out and watch some tv. This way we get to spend some nice time together in the evenings without be being hunched over a laptop in the living room all night. (oh sweet mac mini with your ergonomical monitor setup.. How have you saved my back and eyes). Its rather nice here and Nyana is responsible for that. If it where up to me it would be this matrix-like cyber hellhole with screens , books, cables and setups everywhere. Cluttered to the max with all things cyber (and very un-cosy) But Nyana manages to wheel me in , says things like 'don't overclutter , keep it simple , leave lots of empty space.. Put that plant (PLANT ?) there , and so on ans so on. The result ? A very cool room with minimal clutter on my office desktop , a nice view , a nice plant , and a painting of a boat on the wall. Not quite what Neo and Morpheus would have wanted for their ship .. but i'm happy and much more relaxed here (stares at plant for Feng-Shuie)As the loud click of the Logitec wireless mouse reminds me that I ditched my apple mighty mouse I must take a look at the clock and promise you my next entry for later on today or tomorrow. I've found a great article about saving data from a crashed computer using the Knoppix cd. (I'm not pimping Linux here David , just pointing out what tools are good for the trade) And I must admitt , the Windows machine right beside me has been down for 2 weeks and I have not even noticed. Shame shame shame on me !
We've got a lot of stuff to talk about today. So open your veins and stand by for a short but high-energy information post. But first : To those of you who think I’m dead , judging by the evening hours I have spent on-line these last week : Your rumours are slightly incorrect. I am however getting pounded by stuff in the real world. So much even that I was far from feeling my chirpy self yesterday and Nyana sent me to bed at nine ! ( Ok , I was feeling poorly and when i'm sick I feel so sorry for myself I can make a clown cry). Bunked in the trunk 5 minutes later and my lights where out faster then an compaq Proliant server during a thunderstorm. No rest for the wicked as I've got some reinstalling to do tonight, a MAJOR meeting with my family on Thursday ( delicate subjects ) some drop-offs and pickups on Friday night and a IT-course on Saturday (all day long). So I’m swamped till next week. What is more surprising is that I’m feeling more worn out from all the stress that I have with all this stuff going on with my family .. then the rushing around I’m doing. Thank heavens for a lovely and supporting fiancé like Nyana. I would not be able to pull it off without her and I love her to bitts !
The automatix script.
But enough about little old me. Some tech stuff was done yesterday. I installed Linux on the HP NX6110 HP laptop I had at home and found it to be an exceptional experience. Installation was fast and swift. I selected all the updates and ran the 'AUTOMATIX script'. This is the little magic program that lets you add all these bonus funtionalities to UBUNTU that turn your computer from a 'linux workstation to play around with' to a fully fledged desktop system.
Here are the three magic lines. (just copy and paste them one by one in your terminal window)
Then you can click on the Applications--> System Tools and you will find the AUTOMATIX icon there. Click it , select ALL the options you want to install and sit back. Installation takes about an hour but after that you'll have all the goodies you need ! DVD playback , MP3 playback , ripping DVD's... and so on and so on. All the things I’ve been looking for in Linux for the last few years in 3 freaking lines of code .. fan Tas Tic ! (you'll find all the info here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=66563 )
Google online bookmarks.
Meanwhile I just want to give you PC users something worthwhile too. I just installed the new Google toolbar and there is one function I absolutely LOVE : The on-line bookmark repository. It means that you can add bookmarks to the google toolbar.. These are then stored on line. If next time you work on another pc and have a Google toolbar installed there as well .. you'll be able to access those same bookmarks :) For me its a fantastic solutions to share my bookmarks between home and work. Here is the link. http://toolbar.google.com/intl/nl/index_ie.php And its available for firefox too of course :) .. But no mac or linux version yet .. Bummer :(
Keyboards :) .. No matter if you love or hate them... you have to use them. And it is of keyboards this little rant is all about. Forgive me any typo's but my mind is doing backflops getting used to this new inexpensive and total crap keyboard I am using.. While trying to get back on the azerty track after being stuck with a US keyboard layout on this machine for the last three days. Yes.. My adventures in ubuntuland did get of to a rather bumpy start after the belgian keyboard layout did not want to join the party. First I was happy as hell to get the classic compact mac keyboard working on my ubuntu. In command line mode it worked like a charm. However .. Where the hell is the insert key on a little keyboard like that ? Allthough it made the estetic ensemble complete together with the blue and white tower .. and did fit in perfectly with the studiodisplay screen... it just was not very convenient. So I changed it with a spare usb PC keyboard I had lying around. (its total crap and I am having wristpains as we speak) No matter.. Because to add trouble to insult (Is that the phrase ?) ,one I booted into GUI (graphical) mode the system refused to give me a BE keyboard layout. It insisted on the US layout and made my fingers crawl with frustration to get stuff right... To no avial (a bug in Ubuntu 5.10 on the mac). But to everything there is an answer.. When clicking fails.. try the uber-powerfull command line. So with a help of a friend I started to look for the file that tells linux what keyboard is attached (Linux would not listen to the mouse .. Time for the CAT ) So i did a Cat on the xconf.org file (which is fancy linux speak for : i opened the file in notepad and read what was inside) Then i used VI (an editor) to open the file and change the US to BE .. It took me two seconds to do that .. It took me ten minutes to figure out how to OPEN vi ( vi "filename") Edit it (press INSERT... not found on mac keyboard) change it (us to be) save it ( :w ) quit ( :q ) and restart the graphical interface (CTRL ALT BACKSPACE) So now its behaving like it should and my mind needs a hack to switch back to azerty. All in all the command line is NOT easy BUT pnce you get the hang of it .... it s mighty powerfull.
Oh yes : The episode 23 of the Knightcast IS ready ... but I will have no time to post it untill next saturday. I'm just swamped with work and stuff to do .. Add misery to cacaphony ... My office is in shambles.. Me and Nayana are redesigning the office into a small work area / living room where we both can hang out together as we do our favorite stuff.
So its of to another busy day with the happy comfort that my little ubuntu project has gone beyond the first bump in the road.
