Nathan’s Blog

The good news is everything “just works” from the install, but there is one minor configuration issue that the installer misses. The eee has a feature called ‘Boot Booster’, which requires a small partition (8MB seems fine) on the SSD with a specific partition type (OxEF, which is EFI partition).

I normally would just install with the “Use entire disk” option, but to get this 8mb partition left over you need to choose the option to partition manually. Assuming you have a 16GB SSD:

• Create a primary 15.5GB Ext3 partition, mounted as /
• Create a primary 8MB partition, set to ‘do not use’
• Use the remaining space (just under 0.5GB)  as a logical partition, set to ’swap area’.

The rest of the installation can then be completed normally. After rebooting into Ubuntu, open a Terminal and run “sudo cfdisk /dev/sda”. From here, you can change the type of the 8MB partition to EF, then write the changes to disk and reboot. You will see the Asus boot screen one more time, then Grub appears. To make sure the change worked, hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE at the Grub screen to restart. This time the BIOS screen should be skipped and Grub will re-appear.

Australian IT is running a story (found via AusGamers forum) covering another chapter in Australian censorship. This time we have a web site threatened with fines of $11,000 a day for posting a link to an anti-abortion website. And what is wrong with this website? Apparently it shows “disturbing” images of dead foetuses.

Is it illegal to possess such photos? No? Then what is going on? It’s amazing to me is how quickly the super-secret-censorship-list has been bent to suit special interests; the scheme isnt implemented yet and they are already beyond “protecting the children”.

Amy and I went to see Ross Noble perform at the Canberra Theatre Centre last night. He is one of those rare people who can genuinely just talk and make funny, spontaneous observations about almost anything. He utilises that ability to construct a very random show that twists and turns, simply incorporating whatever he happens to think about. He is also a fan of self-referential humour, either by criticising his own actions or acting as he imagines an audience might at his antics.

Unfortunately for me its all just a bit too uneven. Ross is a fan of tangential observations, which when used to full effect can be very funny. Ross however seems unable to ignore tangents that are less funny than his current topic, leading to a show whose comedic value ebbs and rises.

The polished traditional comic seems to avoid this: in utilizing essentially the same stories each performance they can fine-tune jokes or simply drop them if the audience don’t react. Ross is unable to take advantage of this, and despite being incredibly gifted over a 2 hour period I definitely started to wish for a little bit more structure – or dare I say it – rehearsal.

That said, it was still a great show to watch; if only to watch a rare talent in action. Ross is capable of some incredibly humorous comments, and the spontanenous nature of his observations only adds to the appeal. Just don’t expect to be fully entertained for the full performance.

Last week I was in Brisbane (where I lived for the first 24 of my years) for work meetings. I travel here roughly every 3 months; its interesting to see what has changed since my last visit.

At the end of the first day I catch a taxi to the hotel. The taxi driver is the talkative type I abhor – personally I look forward to the robot taxi’s they have in some science fiction. He asks about where I obtained the jacket I am wearing and he is confused by my answer of “Parliament”. Do they not have that store here or is this guy just ignorant?

I have visited the hotel I have stayed in before; its the kind of place you dont want to spend any time in. Adequate for sleeping but the design sense is.. lacking. At least its clean.

Having established I’m not a local, the taxi driver moves to the obvious question of why I am here. My answer compels him to tell a story of when he once used Excel to average some numbers, from which he concludes computers are easy whilst also claiming he doesn’t understand them. What this story has to do with software development isn’t clear to me.

His computer story continues to some problem with his broadband and “Mozilla Firefox”. This intrigues me – both due to his prefix of Mozilla and that this apparently minimum-requirements computer user is not using Internet Explorer.

The final story of my trip is a confused tale of doing something in the registry. This is somewhat conflicting – why is this self-described computer illiterate person making changes to the registry. And where has the Windows-world gone wrong that people have to resort to this level of chicanery.

A perhaps little known fact is that Linux (or more precisely, Gnome) has a registry too. I don’t know much beyond that – I’ve never had to use it, and certainly don’t know what’s in there or why I might need to alter a setting.

During the meetings, I watched a coworker struggle to login to a Windows shared folder. He typed his login details into the popup box, and pressed enter. The window reappears – must be the wrong password? He tries again, and then a third time, each time giving the same result. Frustrated he gives up and presses “Escape” to cancel the action, at which point the folder he was trying to access appears.

I don’t know why the wider world – and particularly technical users – cling to Windows. The popular belief amongst the power users is that linux is somehow hard to use and yet somehow the ongoing grief Windows visibly causes these people is glossed over.