Tim Groeneveld

*sigh* the Internet. From updated software to the Himalayas’.

I thought that I might just describe today how I got lost in an interesting maze of Handbrakes to Schools in the Indian Himalayas.

So, I was doing my normal morning Internet browse, off discovering what new and interesting tidbits of information I could discover. On Freshmeat, I learnt that there was a new version of Handbrake, a popular (and very, very awesome tool) for converting DVDs into other formats so they can be viewed on iPods and iPhones.

Cool, I thought. Upon reading the changelog, they listed a couple of changes to ‘ghb’. What was ghb, I wondered? Well, a Google found that GHB was infact Gamma-Hydroxybutyric Acid. Indeed, Gamma-Hydroxybutyric Acid was not what I was looking for, but it did start the wild search party.

From learning all about GHB and it’s affects, Wikipedia was only more then happy to teach me more information. Xyrem, manufactured by Jazz Pharmaceuticals is a orphan drug. What’s an orphan drug? Well, it’s a pharmaceutical agent that has been developed specifically to treat a rare medical conditions.

Since the market for any drug with such a limited application scope would, by definition, be small and thus largely unprofitable, government intervention is often required to motivate a manufacturer to address the need for an orphan drug. One of the interventions that can be undertaken by a government is to create a government-run enterprise to engage in research and development, otherwise known as a Crown Corporation.

An example of a Crown Corporation is the Australian based National Broadband Sceme, which is owned and operated by the Department of Communication and the Digital Economy.

On the DBCDE site, there was a media release sent out: “A reminder for Australians affected by floods about the Satellite Phone Subsidy Scheme”. Naturally, it was time to have a look at who was offering and what the price of satellite phone are. $1,000+. One of the coolest phones being the Thuraya XT. (ZOMG! It has a color screen!)

Looking for how much it actually costs to have a satellite phone (ie, monthly charges) I found a page listing where the Thuraya phones are used.

Leading me to an isolated village situated in the Indian Himalayas, Kargyak. In September 2009 the Surya Civic Association finished construction of the specially designed “passive” school-building heated by sun, fully ecological and also compatible with local structures also in terms of appearance.

It’s pretty cool and I suggest you take a look.

It’s 2011, time for a new year and a list of new years resolutions. The United Nations has designated 2011 the International Year of Forests and International Year of Chemistry, but the real question is: what will I designate the year 2011 to?

Well, for starters year 2011 will be the year of finalising last year’s study rush. I have all the books you could imagine on Windows 2008, and am getting myself all prepared and ready for taking the MCITP* exams.

* I am glad I will not be tagged anymore as someone who Must Consult Someone Experienced (MCSE )

Also, this will be the year for taking my Red Hat Certified Virtualization Administrator exams (Both the RHCVA and the RHCE).

2011 will be the year of sharing knowledge that I have. Many people who know me would attest to the fact that if you ask me a question, most likely it will result in me giving you the required answer, me entering into a heated discusion on the topic of the question or me finding the answer to the question, but I almost never share my words with anyone else.

To help my quest in sharing this knowledge, I am going to try my best to write down notes of any newly acquired intelligence. Not only to ensure that I can quickly reference this information if and when it is required by myself in the future but to also ensure that other people can be enlightened with the same material.

Of my list of New Year’s Resolutions for this year, most likely my wish to share with a larger population any knowledge that is sitting in my head is the one that will affect people other then myself. Seeing as this is the one item on my personal ‘TODO’ list, I think that is a very nice achievement.

For 2011, I want to see the world as a better place for all human beings. I want to find a way to be able to help the population of Australia in a way that will provide lasting benefits. Something that has been in my head lately has been Habitat. The mission statement of Habitat for Humanity is to “seek to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action.”.

Homeowners are usually expected to put approximately 500 hours of “sweat equity” into their own or other project homes, although this amount may vary by location, the number of wage-earning adults in each family, and the recipients’ health issues.

Personally, I see that this is a fantastic way to help people in Australia and provide long lasting benefits to the community in an area other then software.

Last year at the last Open Source Developers Conference I complained how there was very little talk about actually developing software. I felt that my little 5 minute rant might just have been wrongly understood, and that discussion will most likely be for another post, but I promised everyone that I would make sure that for this year’s conference I will be presenting at least one topic. I will be putting up my hand when the Call of Papers is announced.

I am hoping that I will be able talk about ways that individuals can be apart of open source software. A prima of sorts for people who are new to this whole ‘Open Source’ thing.

Of course, no new year’s resolution list would be complete without the traditional personal item . In 2011 I need to loose some weight, just 10KG’s would be fine Sydney has way to many McDonald’s and Starbucks and you only need to look at my tummy for proof!

Ever since I have started using KDE with Linux/FreeBSD as my desktop replacing Windows, there has been just one thing that has really annoyed me about both of these desktops, and that is using Kodak cameras.

Yes – I know, such a simple device, but you will be amazed at how many headaches it used to cause. Photo transfers would litrally take 20 minutes with the “KDE way” using the kioslave camera:/.

Finally there is a better way!

With the help of this site, I have found out that there is an even faster way to get my files, and it literally has saved me 30-60 minutes copying all the photos of my camera.

Instead of using the provided kioslave with KDE (and the new Kubuntu 9.04, which by the way is great!) I, for the first time in the new version of Kubuntu needed to use the console.

gphoto2 --auto-detect

This command got me a list of all the camera's that I had plugged into my system.

Model                          Port
----------------------------------------------------------
USB PTP Class Camera           usb:

After I knew what the port was, I could literally mount the camera as part of my filesystem using this command:

gphotofs --port=usb: ~/camera

and bam! just copy the files from /home/tim/camera into the Documents folder and 300MB of photo’s were transfered in less then three minutes.

Fantastic! This is so much faster then the KDE way, I can not prove to you how happy I am that this speed bottleneck is now solved.

So, I thought I might like to tell you all that I am working the life of the working man now. I recently (on Thursday) started work at my first real full-time job at Digital Pacific.

It seems like a pretty good place, and even though it means moving from my current place in residence, which is Newcastle to Sydney, around two and a half hours away; working there really is worth it. All the people there are great, and my job is lots of fun.

So, I have not really been working on many projects for quiet some time, so today is actually the first day that I started working on some of my new upcomming releases.

Just can’t wait to find a place to live in Sydney

Ahhh, the modern BBS. Let’s examine it. The modern BBS (which has yet to be given a name) is a mini hackathon project that I am doing to give some life to the rotting away OpenNIC “.bbs” top level domain. I am going to operate a bulitin board system, but update it a little at the same time.

My plans are to use SSH, Perl and Curses (Curses::UI to be exact) to do funky ASCII interfaces without spending *too* much time working on the fine lines.

Will share more when I awaken from my slumber.

Today is the day where we celebrate all that our SysAdmins have to offer. That is, their patience and their weekends! So to all System Administrators out there,

Happy SysAdmin Day!