Acadiana Open Source Group
While the Acadiana Macromedia Multimedia User Group has been around for a number of years and the recently formed Acadiana .NET User Group (requires Silverlight) has added to the number of user groups in the Acadiana area, there was still a void left by the long since defunct Linux user group of the area that needed to be filled. To that end, I decided to spearhead an effort to start a local user group for the open source software community.
The Acadiana Open Source Group now has a web site, a Facebook group, and a first meeting scheduled for the end of April. So, if you're in the Acadiana area or know someone who is, tell them about AOS! I've sent out press releases to various media sources, sent Facebook invites to friends, and will likely end up posting flyers in various places around nearby UL campus before the meeting date. I want to pack the conference room we have reserved and have a large number of return visitors for the next meeting, so bring it!
Do What I Mean and Not What I Say!
If you posted a comment recently and don't see it on the blog, I apologize. I managed to accidentally delete some when going through comments to approve them. If you wouldn't mind, please repost them, as most had very good content relevant to their respective posts. Thanks!
Kubuntu + Vaio = Nice
So the tax return ended up coming in around my birthday. Since it had been a long while since I'd gotten an upgrade, I decided to treat myself to a new Sony Vaio VGN-NR298E. The first order of business once I got it, of couse, was to wipe it clean of Windows Vista. Not having ever settled on a Linux distro of preference before, I decided to give Kubuntu 7.10 a try.
After installing and booting up for the first time, I found that the wireless didn't work right out of the box. I was able to find this forum thread, which included a link to the Intel PRO/Wireless 4965 AG/AGN network card drivers in the section marked "Wlan." I installed ndiswrapper-common and ndiswrapper-utils-1.9, the latter of which appeared to include a version of the netw4x32 driver. However, when I issued the command ndiswrapper -l, it indicated that the driver was invalid. I removed it with ndiswrapper -r netw4x32, then downloaded the latest version from the aforementioned link and installed it as per the forum thread's directions.
I also needed a solution to allow me to manage the music and files on my Creative Zen Vision: W. I'd had great experiences with their MuVo line, but I have to say that the experience with the Zen hasn't been nearly as good. Creative has extremely subpar Windows-only software for interacting with the hardware, the design of which was obviously intended to keep third parties from developing their own software.
Oddly enough, I'd never heard of this before, but Gnomad2 was quite the excellent solution for my situation. It's a simple program with an FTP client-like interface for transferring music and files to and from the Zen. If you enable the universe and multiverse repositories, you should be able to find it by searching Adept.
I also ran into the reputable difficulties with the keyboard function keys. The volume function keys will only let me toggle the volume up and down a single level relative to its current level. The brightness keys don't work at all, which is annoying as I end up missing the feature that worked fine on my old Dell Inspiron 1150. I've tried a few suggested solutions for getting these to work, but no luck so far. Any feedback on this is welcome.
I couldn't adjust myself to Konqueror as it felt like an unfamiliar, slow, and crippled version of Firefox. I ended up installing that along with the Flash Player add-on for it and my usual group of extensions. I also found the default installation lacking a program capable of playing some video formats, so I installed VLC (also available from Adept).
Overall, though, I think I'm liking Kubuntu. Hopefully Lorna Jane will be able to help me get further accustomed to it.
New Job
I've been working full-time for METHODS Technology Solutions, Inc. for roughly a year at this point. My coworkers are bright and insightful, the environment is relatively lax, and the job has had its share of challenges. Oracle, while I like it well enough as a database, has not proven to be my development platform of choice. The commute and unpredictability of traffic tends to make for long days and more time away from my family. In short, while it was certainly a good job and I'd highly recommend the company as a potential employer to anyone who asked, it wasn't the best possible fit for me.
So when I received a copy of an ad placed by surgiSYS LLC for a LAMP Developer, as hesitant as I was to change jobs, I went ahead and sent in an inquiry. Two interviews later, I received an official offer, accepted, and turned in my notice. I will officially start there as of February 18th. The company has a Lafayette office right next to the university my wife attends and where my children attend daycare. It will give me the ability to be closer to my family than I've been able to in some time.
Some of my goals involve continuing to attend conferences, get published, and stay active in the PHP community. Because these goals are very relevant to my performance at surgiSYS, I believe they'll make it a point to support me in my endeavors. The LAMP platform was always my first love and I'll be happy to return to it. I look forward to the changes and challenges this will bring and I thank my family and friends for their support in making this decision. Wish me luck!
Popular Posts of 2007
I noticed that one of the feeds I read regularly, Gadgetopia, did a post recently on popular posts of last year by visits and comments. I thought that was rather neat and, being that I'm also a user of Google Analytics, I thought I'd do the same. I've already been looking in on my traffic over time since I launched the blog and have found the results rather surprising.
Top Posts By Visits
- Supporting Hierarchical Data Sets
- Pondering PHP 6
- PHP Abstract Episode 22: Screen Scraping
- Log Analysis and PHP
- The Acme of Skill
I've noticed a lot of people seem to be inquiring about PHP 6 on IRC, perhaps partly because PHP 4 is on the way out. PHP 6 is vaporware at this point, people. There's no official ETA. As the internals people like to say, it'll be out WIR (When It's Ready). If you want to put your energy toward something more constructive, monitor internals and get clued into the features that will show up in 5.3, as I'm sure that will be out significantly sooner.
I'm not including my code page in the above list, but it actually got more traffic than the #3 post. Most of that is due to the plug on paste2.org for my PHP script to submit to it and output the resulting URL. It's usable from any text editor that supports piping a line range to stdout, though I've only tested it with vim. Have a look if you like; it might prove useful to you.Top Posts By Comments
- Supporting Hierarchical Data Sets
- The Acme of Skill
- There and Back Again - A Conference Tale
- Pondering PHP 6
- Log Analysis and PHP
Not surprisingly, there was a good bit of overlap with the previous list. I did get a few recommendations for conferences in #3, so that might be worth a look if you haven't attended a conference before. One thing I would like to hear in regard to this is opinions on the best conferences for networking and for supporting speakers. Both, particularly the latter, are interests of mine that I'd like to pursue this year. Feel free to leave a comment if you have conferences you'd like to encourage me to attend.
Thanks to all you readers for making 2007 a great year!