WET Weblog

My First Wireless WAN Device

Well, Krista's annoyance at seeing random $9.95 charges on our corporate card for wi-fi hotspot access during my travels over the last year finally convinced me to give an AT&T Wireless WAN device a try. I say device, because it is not a PC card...it is the Sierra Wireless USBConnect 881, which plugs into an available USB port to provide cellular data service.

So far, so good, I guess. I'm using it to write this post, and given the length of time since my last post, this can't be all bad. 3G access, at a max of 3.6 Mbps so far, is sketchy in most locations I've tried to use it. Speeds any slower are virtually unusable, so there are times when I shake my head, and just unplug the device. I've been able to browse the web, check email, and use instant messaging at a rate of about 70% reliability...the other 30% being aggravating discconnects at inopportune times.

In dense metro areas, coverage is supposedly better for high-speed access, but time will tell if this is a worthwhile investment. At any rate, it seems better than sorting random charges, and dealing with time consuming hurdles to get connected.

See you online.

Upgrading by Deep Dependency

The technical analog to "Management by Shiny Object" would have to be "Upgrading by Deep Dependency". I am usually very quick to speak highly of Gentoo Linux as both a Linux distribution and general philosophy, but I have recently been stung by a requirement to upgrade a cascade of seemingly unrelated packages that ultimately "broke" my system in the performance of what I thought was a simple application update...an update intended to resolve a minor bug. Little did I know that I would very soon be begging for the minor annoyance of that bug to return just so I could have my life back. I've been a Gentoo user for at least 5 years, so I know that if I am frustrated, other less dedicated users must be leaving the distribution in droves.

PodShow+: Uniting Innovative Content Producers with Hungry Listeners

You can't be involved with technology without having your eyes open for innovation. Innovative ideas are what make free markets so great, and keep competition in-pace with consumer desires. As organizations muscle their way into the competition for your attention through marketing blitz and main media saturation, a new forum has arisen for niche market consumers to find a message (or messages) most suited to them and their needs through all the noise: PodShow+.

"TheSHOW", as Adam Curry calls it, is many things for many people. It is a web-based aggregator and search engine for podcast listeners to find new content, be it informative talk radio style shows, or new music that is flying under the radar of mainstream outlets. It is a marketing vehicle for podcasters to get their "message" out to listeners. It is an alternative to signing with big recording companies for musicians and song writers, allowing them to use the Internet more easily to find an audience for their creations while they retain ownership rights. Finally, PodShow+ is a social networking tool combining all of these disparate groups, allowing them to work collaboratively to redefine media as we have come to know it.

"Dig me" at My Little Piece of TheSHOW!

WET Pod Foo #2 is up!

WET Pod Foo #2 was posted today: a couple of cool songs, follow-up to the first show, and new content about Open Source applications you can use painlessly and productively with your current Windows machine. As a bonus, I provide insight into five tools I find indispensable in my daily work life.

Check it out at WET Pod Foo!

WET Pod Foo Has Been Launched

To pursue my interest in exploring the business and educational benefits of the podcasting phenomenon, I have begun a podcast for Witt'z End Technologies called "WET Pod Foo". The first episode is available online at the WET Pod Foo website.

You can subscribe to the podcast feed here with an RSS feed reader.

If you prefer, you can also subscribe through Apple's iTunes to more easily get the podcast into your iTunes client and/or iPod.

Enjoy!

Review: "Open Source for the Enterprise: Managing Risks Reaping Rewards"

It is no secret...I think Open Source Software can be of tremendous value to some organizations, but up until quite recently, books on the subject tended to focus more on the tools than on the business cases in which value might be realized. This is probably quite typical when innovators and early adopters of technology try to impart the value to others...the message tends to contain information that is "cool" rather than truly valuable from an evaluation standpoint.

Woods and Guliani's Open Source for the Enterprise: Managing Risks Reaping Rewards is a refreshing departure from the norm in books covering Open Source technologies for business. It clearly dissects the subject of Open Source, providing useful business-level processes organizations can put to work immediately to evaluate the viability of F/OSS tools for their organization. Regardless of your current stance on Open Source, pro or con, this text may be an eye-opener...and may even change your decision-making paradigm on the subject.

Correction: network-admin in Ubuntu

In my review of Ubuntu Linux 6.06 the other day, I mistakenly gave credit to the Ubuntu Team for the "Networking" applet (a.k.a. network-admin) I enjoyed so much. While it is probable Ubuntu contributed some code to create the proper "fit" for the version of the tool included with their recent release, the rightful credit for producing this useful tool should go to the Gnome Desktop developers. network-admin is part of the Gnome System Tools package, and is included along with several distros that use the Gnome Desktop. I had just not seen the current rev of the tool until my recent experience with Ubuntu. I guess I need to "get out" more.

My attribution error does not diminish the value of Ubuntu, or of the network-admin tool. I just wanted to clear up any confusion or ill will I may have generated.

Cheers,

Kicking the Tires on Ubuntu Linux 6.06

As many already know, I am a die-hard Gentoo Linux user...I use it at work, at home, and anywhere else I have machines used (primarily by me) to "hack". Lately I've been hearing podcasts and reading weblogs that exclaim the virtues of Ubuntu Linux 6.06 as a desktop-user-friendly (read: suitable Windows replacement) distribution, so, despite my personal preferences, I decided it was high-time I take this Debian-based distribution for a test-drive.

favicon.ico Creation and Screen Captures on Linux

There are several tools and processes I've been wanting to make the subject of Weblog posts, but keep I forgetting about them until something comes up that makes me wish I wasn't so lazy about such things. Two popped-up again yesterday.

Last night, the sometimes mystical process of creating favicon.ico files for websites without the use of commercial tools came up as I was helping my wife put together a site for an organization with which she works. I often forget this process, as there is no built-in way to do this using my favorite image editor, The GIMP, directly. So, this post is primarily a breadcrumb for myself, but doubles as a useful tech tip for anyone else searching for ways to create these files easily.

Earlier yesterday, I happened to notice someone entered the search engine keyword phrase, "linux ppc screen capture", which is an almost monthly phenomenon, and results in a link to my (very) old Gentoo Linux PPC Screen Capture page. While this is pretty and all, it probably isn't particularly useful for someone looking for ways to create screen captures (a.k.a. screenshots) on Linux. I always hate to be disappointed upon visiting a search engine result myself, so I endeavor to minimize that disappointment in others as they navigate to our site.

Trust Turned to Trussed

I spend a fair amount of my commute time reading. Mostly just catching up on a seemingly endless pile of magazines covering topics of interest to me professionally and personally. Among my most favorite is IEEE Security & Privacy. It always manages to capture my attention, and holds my interest until I've wound up reading the issue very nearly cover-to-cover...sometimes with a chuckle or two.

Usually when an article on the very serious issues surrounding computer security and privacy produces a chuckle or laugh, it seldom has anything to do with the topic, or the author's coverage of it. Most often, I get tickled over my own mental contortions of what is being said...generally, outside of the original context. As an example: