Spotted on Planet Debian...

create your own visited countries map

Built, and uploaded Blam packages, they depend upon the Mono packages from the ximian APT component, make sure you have it in your sources.list (Screenshot below).

Will build Tomboy as soon as Alex's website is available, and I can get a proper tarball, rather than building HEAD.

(That's Happy New Year in Welsh)

2005 will be here in seven hours, it's already in Australia. BS102 essay (or, bs102.abw as it's also known) is complete, and on my USB key for safe keeping - just in case of course.

Dave and Catherine popped in this afternoon, they're at a wedding in Yorkshire tomorrow, so they were in the area, was good to see them.

About to start on Blam package building.

Novell have finally, about nine months after I requested it, and was told that it was being worked upon, started producing news feeds in RSS 2.0 that I can add to Planet SuSE.

Handily all the feeds that they've done thus far are SuSE relevant, so I've added them all. Nice one Novell, can we have the rest soon please?

Anyone who regularly does an APT upgrade will have noticed that gtkhtml2 had a rebuild yesterday for no apparent reason. This was to allow it to play nice with the Mono packages from the ximian APT component. Having done that, I've been playing around with a couple of Mono apps, specifically Blam and Tomboy. For those who don't know, Blam is an RSS aggregator, and I've been using it to read, amongst other things, Planet SuSE, Planet GNOME and BBC News. Tomboy is nifty little note taking app, it's basically a serverless Wiki. Expect packages of both very soon, as soon as I have time to do them. Here's a screenshot of them sitting in my notifcation area:

My BS102 is just shy of 1000 words, which was my target for today, so I'm quite pleased with my progress, will probably walk up to college tomorrow to grab an extra book that I want to refer to, hopefully get it finished (save for some tweaking of course) tomorrow. Then we're off to Chris & Bernie's for a New Year's Eve bash.

Rodrigo released 1.2.0 of libgda and libgnomedb. I filed bug #162471. It's pretty much a team effort

Switched to X.Org 6.8.1, wow, talk about seamless, the keyboard driver reference was succesfully changed to kbd, and all I had to do was rebuild my NVidia driver. (apt install xorg*).

Christmas was good, New Year will soon be upon us, unfortunately, Caz wasn't well, so couldn't join us as planned on Boxing Day.

Uploaded new ULB GNOME - a minor revision, 2.8.0.2. This update now requires netapplet cos it's hella cool, and an updated libgnome and gnome-vfs2 which change the default browser from Galeon to Firefox (they depend upon the SuSE package MozillaFirefox)

Posted by me on SLE yesterday.

My gift to you all: Updated evolution, gal2, gtkhtml2 and evolution-data-server packages.

Ho ho ho...

Great night last night, fantastic curry as always, and good company, who could ask for anything more?

Have built Coaster, the kick-ass CD burning app for GNOME by Bryan. Also (of course) it's dependencies Bakery and libxml++ as well the required update to nautilus-cd-burner.

apt-get install coaster will sort you out.

Updated netapplet package to 1.0.0, and patched it to use gnomesu rather than kdesu when launching YaST to configure the network settings, this speeds things up incredibly, even on my P4 3.4GHz, the delay in starting kdesu is considerable, it's hardly noticable when starting gnomesu. Might well update that patch to provide a message that's specific to netapplet then send Rob the patch. Have already sent him an en_GB translation.

Next ULB GNOME release will depend upon netapplet, and oh yes, have done a patch to patch the .desktop file to vanilla GNOME categories.

Amazing how having an essay to do really motivates me to get into some code

Was playing with Gnome Blog earlier. Thing is, my blog is hosted by my ISP, and I upload using SCP, so I can't use it for my "real" blog.

Wish I had the time to write a simple client, based upon Gnome Blog that would do the following (all toggleable):

• Save the blog entry in a Blosxom compatible format to a local directory, using either a user-specified filename, or UNIX date format filename, followed by user-specified extension.
• Upload to a remote server by FTP, with password either saved (ouch) or prompted for.
• Upload to a remote server by SCP, using gnome-ssh-askpass2 to provide the passphrase (have built updated openssh packages for SuSE 9.1 to add gnome-ssh-askpass2 to openssh-askpass - might split it out into a seperate openssh-gnome package.

I guess ideally, these would be included in Gnome Blog, might drop Seth a line to ask about it, another of those moments when I consider learning Python.

New openssh uploaded, along with updated gstreamer packages (0.8.8 - released today)

Just got a GMail invite this morning, have to say, it's very nice, why can't other webmail services be like this? It actually feels like a real application. Well done Google.

We're out for a Wetherspoon curry tonight with Liz & Jo from college. Planning to get some work done on my BS102 essay before walking down.

[Ref]

Congratulations Roger. Dunno about certified, maybe committed

Updated GIMP packages to restore Python plugin.

R.I.P. Crappy Old Laptop - it finally gave up the ghost today.

The GIMP and Gnumeric have both hit their next stable version, 2.2.0 and 1.4.1 respectively. Gnumeric is built, GIMP is building, and I'll upload them both, along with updated libgsf and librsvg later on.

Update: Note to self, log Python plugin build bug

Update 2: Blimey! Just noticed that my GIMP builds are linked from the official GIMP download page, and my Gnumeric builds are linked from it's downloads page.

Two weddings in a week! Fiona and Richard's today at college, and we were in the 'choir' for the signing of the register and during the eucharist. Another lovely day, and it's the first wedding I've ever been to that included a celebration of the eucharist.

We've finally put our tree up, only a week before the big day, feeling festive, although that may be the wine and bubbly from the wedding breakfast...

Last night went very well, a lot of fun was had by all. We ended up projecting Goom into the raftered ceiling of the chapel (where the disco part of the night was taking place. After the party had finished, we somehow managed to put the chapel, one of the lecture rooms where we'd "borrowed" a whole bunch of tables from and the dining room back how they're supposed to be.

Low impact today, which was just as well, as we were all incredibly tired. There was mulled wine in the common room at the 11am break (what a result) and our last lecture session was cancelled by John Kelly. After lunch we had our end of term eucharist, which was beautiful, and I rather hit my funky groove as we played out with Joy to the World.

Tonight is the college Christmas Bash, and I've been charged with looking after the music. Various people have given me CDs to rip, and tonight it's going to be a royalty free, Free Software delivered disco.

That's right folks, a randomised selection from 452 tracks, ripped to OGG using Sound Juicer will be played with Totem running on SuSE 9.1. The Goom visualisation plugin will be projected onto the walls, here's it in action on Welcome to the Jungle:

Screw installing Gallery - chmod 0777? No thanks!

Finally uploaded galleries of the two weddings and our house move.

Uploading updated AbiWord packages (version 2.2.2) and new packages of vino the integrated VNC server for GNOME, this is at version 2.8.1.

DSL is now up and running, and at 1M downstream, which is just lovely. It dropped a couple of times last night, which was a bit weird, but I'd specified the internet facing IP in the router's config, seems to not be dropping since I set it to obtain it by DHCP.

Now to setup Gallery on it...

DSL has been activated on the line (router synchronised this morning), should get authentication details today, and be up and running by the end of the day.

Oh yes, my DSL is provided by NSH Consultancy, a.k.a. my mate Neil - cheers pal!

Very good weekend. Cabled the house up with Cat 5 on Saturday, so now have ethernet connectivity in the living/dining room and the study. Don't need it anywhere else, unless at some point I decide to use the (huge) built-in cupboard in the guest room as a server room. We then finished off unpacking the living/dining room, so that's now ready to receive guests. Will be putting the tree up real soon, as soon as I sort out some power in that room. One thing we didn't really consider about the house is that power sockets are few and far between, so I'm going to have to liberate the two extension leads I have in my college room (since I really no longer need to have quite so much kit in here any more) and use one to provide power to the DSL router/switch and the other, for now, for the tree lights.

Yesterday was Carole and Andrew's wedding, and it was just a fantastic day. Everything about it was wonderful, and Carole's never looked so lovely. My sermon seemed to go quite well, although I was shaking like a leaf behind the lectern. Apparently one of the guests commented to Carole "If he's not a vicar, he should be". Encouraging

The reception was at Fawsley Hall, where Queen Elizabeth I was once entertained in the 16th Century. The food was wonderful, good wine, and the speeches came in at 32 minutes. Harsh, as I had 34 minutes in the sweepstake that JS had organised.

The happy couple are off the Sri Lanka today, looking forward to seeing them when they get back to Blighty. In the meantime, I have an essay on Hosea to attack, starting today.

We now have an activation date - December 15th, which gives me five days to get the Cat 5 cabling in from the main phone point to the study and the living room. Unless someone wants to donate a Wireless Access Point

Courses at St John's are either validated by Nottingham Uni, or the Open University. The course I'm on (BA (Hons), Ministry) is validated by Nottingham, but at the moment, the Open Uni are doing their inspection of the facilities here. As part of that, a couple of them just paid an inpromptu visit to my room accompanied by my course convener, John Darch.

Of course, this means that they had the extreme pleasure to see ULB GNOME on SuSE 9.1, with Firefox running, and wget grabbing the sources for GNOME 2.8.2 in one terminal window, and GARNOME building GNOME Office in another.

In other news, decided this morning in my Old Testament Prophets seminar that Ezekiel was a geek too. Came out of us reading Ezekiel 4: 1-3, and Doug commenting that it sounded like he was playing Warhammer - it doesn't get much more geeky that that, does it?

My current TODO list looks a little like this:

• BS102 & CTW102 essays.
• GNOME 2.8.2 (and any more recent stable versions of individual modules such as Evolution 2.0.3 - just out) on SuSE 9.1.
• Update hotplug for SuSE 9.1, and then finally get g-v-m etc. built and working.
• Upgrade notebook to SuSE 9.2
• Repeat all GNOME steps on SuSE 9.2

rm -fr control-center
!make

...and so it continues, have switched to downloading using FTP from ftp.mirrorservice.org to speed the process up a bit.

(Reported bug #160755)

DSL: Waiting for BT to give a date for them to fix the problems on the line that would hinder a 1M DSL rather than a 512k one. Apparently they tend to give one day's notice when they manage to come up with one.

Question for Pavel and Michael:

On a [mainly thinking about Windoze I'm afraid] machine with a dual output, will OpenOffice.org Impress support displaying a slideshow on display 2 in the same way that PowerPoint does? This would make life a lot easier for people who use dual output machines for displaying, as it's output 2 that tends to be connected to projectors. Mostly thinking about version 2.0 (and next time I have to boot into Windows, I'll download a beta and try it for myself)

cd garnome-2.9.2
make paranoid-install

I may live to regret this

Update: Build still progressing, have disabled building of gnome-volume-manager for safety (although if and when I build an updated hotplug for 9.1, I may redo it with g-v-m in place), and had to remove the PATCHFILES entry from the gnome-vfs Makefile, as the patch file didn't apply. It's now building libgnomeui.

(Can't report the patch problem on the list, still waiting for the DSL, and so the reappearance online of swamprat)

Update 2: Encountered GNOME bug #160693, lucky I found the existing bug entry before submitting it. I'll just be uploading a patch to fix it.

Update 3: After hitting, and patching against bug #160698, build has failed with control-center requiring libnautilus.pc which is no longer included in the nautilus 2.9 branch. Looks like we need a 2.9.x release of control-center.

[Full Story]

"According to a notarized affidavit signed by Clint Curtis, while he was employed by the NASA Kennedy Space Center contractor, Yang Enterprises, Inc., during 2000, [Florida Republican Representative] Feeney solicited him to write a program to "control the vote." At the time, Curtis was of the opinion that the program was to be used for preventing fraud in the in the 2002 election in Palm Beach County, Florida. His mind was changed, however, when the true intentions of Feeney became clear: the computer program was going to be used to suppress the Democratic vote in counties with large Democratic registrations."

Essays handed in - several hours ahead of the deadline, I'm breaking all kinds of [personal] records here! In all seriousness, it's so good to actually have got off to what I hope is a good start.

Last week before Carole's wedding, and my sermon is pretty well formed in my mind. I'm not the kind of person to really write out a sermon, but I plan to maybe do myself some cue cards with my main points and scripture references on. Now, that's organised. No mention will be made on content until after the wedding in case Carole or Andrew happen to read this.

AbiWord 2.2.1 and Enchant 1.1.5 will be built and uploaded today.

Just finished my CTW101 essay, it and the BS101 one are due in tomorrow, so I have enough time to get it printed and do a college cover sheet for it.

Uploaded new gaim builds - version 1.1.0.

Just in case anyone's emailed me over the last week or so, because of the move, I'm not receiving mail at the moment, because all my mail goes through swamprat, my home server (because Amanda also had addresses at my various domains, so I can't just POP3 them from my hoster's server to my laptop), as soon as the DSL is active in our new house, I'll be catching up.

• Essay: 999 words.
• Me: Ill - full of cold, drinking lemsip.
• Morning: 2 hours reflection on previous occupation (how exciting!) followed by two hours on mission.

At least it's the weekend tomorrow.

I have now started actually producing words for my CTW101 essay.

I have also printed out my BS101 essay ready to hand it in.

Currently playing: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Around The World.

Right, DSL has been ordered for the Nottingham house, 1M downstream, 256k upstream, on a static IP. Why do they still not offer anything better than 256k upstream irrespective of your downstream speed?

Well, we moved yesterday, all went very smoothly, and we now have a house full of boxes. No DSL for a week or so probably, which means no photos of the move or the wedding yet (my galleries are hosted on my home server), but they will come.

So now, back to the course...

Packages updated today:

• gstreamer-plugins[-*]
  Updated to version 0.8.6, various plugins now enabled
• totem[-mozilla]
  Updated to version 0.99.22

Planet SuSE updated to fix link to Michael's blog.

Liverpool are a goal up against Arsenal!

We completed on Friday! Jo has picked up the keys for us, cos I came down to Watford Friday afternoon for Clare and Jeremy's wedding. A fantastic affair, took a bunch of photos, but I left my USB cable for my cam in Nottingham, so can't upload them till I get back up there tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, that's when we move. The removal company were here yesterday morning doing the lion's share of the boxing up, and so now our entire life appears to be in boxes around the house - very strange.

Will be seriously attacking my CTW101 essay this week (it's due a week tomorrow), and then start looking at my BS102 one. Might leave the CTW102 essay until the beginning of the Christmas vacation - Amanda will be at work, so I'll need something to occupy me besides meeting up with people for coffee...

Wow! Those Ukrainians sure know how to grow a beard!

We exchanged contracts today!

We complete on Friday!

We move into the house on Monday!

Details are of course that we then have to find homes for all our stuff, get used to being there, and oh yes, I still have to be bothered about college and all that stuff. Also, still need a buyer for our house in Watford, so best praying trousers on!

DSL will be provided by NSHC who also provide my web & mail hosting.

Gave up on trying to install Ubuntu on Bochs, so sacrificed Crappy Old Laptop to the cause. And it was a sacrfice, because having repartitioned it's drive, the installer then proceeded not to install the base system! For some reason it also couldn't get an IP from the DHCP server here at college (so I manually set one that I knew to be free). SuSE 9.1 is currently reinstalling on it, although I'm also downloading the ISO for Hoary, so I may just try that. Yes, I'll just kill the SuSE install now.

My installation of Ubuntu (Warty) on Bochs failed, first off, when it started, this is what I saw:

So far so good, and I proceeded with the installation, which seemed to be going well, and eventually started installing the base system, but then, it fails with this. Switching, as it says to console three reveals this.

Of course, this is down to the fact that I don't have a NIC setup on Bochs, so it can't get the packages it wants.

Time to learn about TUN/TAP...

Currently uploading:

• AbiWord 2.2.0
• XChat 2.4.1

More on Ubuntu later...

I see a bandwagon, I jump on it.

Thing is, I couldn't quite bring myself to nuke my lovely [working] SuSE 9.1 install, even 9.2 hasn't tempted me to do that (what? rebuild all my GNOME 2.8 packages? you're having a larf!), but I really want to get into Ubuntu. Don't have the patience to install it on Crappy Old Laptop, so I opted for Bochs. First time I've ever used it, and it's going well. Created a 2G disk image to install into [ref], set the memory size to 256M [ref] and upped the IPS to emulate a 500MHz CPU [ref] (the ips value I used is 500000000).

They're the only changes I've had to make to default settings from the SuSE package (and I know I hadn't made changes previously cos I only installed it today), and Ubuntu is now installing very nicely. I'll enable an NE2000 NIC at some point, and USB is enabled by default. I only wish I'd been taking screenshots as I went, never mind, I'll do one of the installed system running when it's ready.

Seriously thinking about trying Ubuntu, and who knows, maybe switching from SuSE/ULB and joining the mighty Jeff's desktop team (if you'll have me, dude )...

If the ISO ever downloads of course...

Currently playing: Blur - Parklife

Who needs a heater when you have a desktop CPU in your notebook, and SETI@home? I started using SETI again yesterday after about a year off, and I noticed that it had this effect:

And the heat extraction on my beast of a notebook was such that when I leave my door shut, and draw the curtains, the room heats up quite nicely.

Oh yes, updated gimp to 2.2pre2 (rpm version is 2.1.99.2).

Discovered Ross' Contact Lookup Applet today, very nice piece of software, screenshots of it in action below. Sent Ross an en_GB translation too while I was looking at it.

Fun night, Liz, Jo, Andy M and myself got a chinese takeout (sooooo much crispy duck!), and watched Breakfast at Tiffany's, another of my all time favorite movies (Jo had also brought When Harry Met Sally just in case I wanted to watch it again.

Before that, had had four straight hours of lectures and seminars in the morning and then lunch and early afternoon with my fellowship group, which was okay.

Interesting...

Cool, seems it's snowed across the continent [Ref: Jimmac in the Czech Republic]

Wonder what caused that sudden, and brief fall. It got as far south as Luton here, but apparently not to Watford.

380 tons!

New package: gossip the Jabber client for GNOME by Imendio.

Holy snow Batman!

Okay, I know you'd think I'd never seen snow before, but it was so unexpected... If it lasts till morning, I'll try to get some better photos in the light.

Thanks Pete. You know what for.

Great news!

As a life long psoriasis sufferer (although it has spent some time in remission), this is fantastic news. I suffer from moderate psoriasis (Ref - find "How serious is psoriasis?" in that page), specifically plaque psoriasis on the scalp and legs (which is why I'm never seen in shorts in the summer).

I know these things take time, and a breakthrough now may be a usable treatment in a decade or so, if ever, but any news is good news.

Tonight, I have been raising a glass to Jen and Dan.

AND I've got a book from the library for my CTW101 essay!

Currently playing: Blur - For Tomorrow

So, this morning, my Palm m105 decided it was going to crash hard on sync this morning. Useless pile of junk! First couple of times it happened, popping one of the batteries, and then replacing it got it working again, although only until I tried to sync again. Then, it decided to just zero itself. Couldn't restore from backups, it just locked up hard everytime, so in the end I had to zero my gnome-pilot directories so it didn't try to restore, and do a one-time copy of my Evolution addressbook & contacts, and reinstall all the software I use.

Old Testament Prophets course started today, into the second set of modules for the term, and Rachel K, neé S has joined the Tuesday partnership course, very cool to have her in the lectures. Will do a newsletter mailing soon, I promise.

Currently playing: Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go

Saw Amanda off back to Watford today

"Charismatic Evening" at college chapel tonight, was doing sound and CTP, both seemed to go quite well. After that, wine at Liz's flat. Think my friends at college might be realising what a sad bastard I am. We were talking about bad courier experiences, and I took control of Liz's PC to refer them all to my various blog entries from September - a bit of a giveaway...

I then made the mistake of showing them Planet SuSE, and realised how badly it renders in Internet Exploiter. Really should redo that CSS at some point...

Someone mentioned on SLE that the orphaned PWC driver had been adopted and updated. The functionality from pwcx.ko has now been incorporated into pwc.ko. The new versions can get obtained here, and my webcam is now using the new version.

Updates today:

• abiword[-plugins-*|-clipart]
• gaim
• gDesklets
• rhythmbox[-xine]

Some Diebold-related links

• Diebold official site
• Diebold Election Systems
• Black Box Voting
• Diebold CEO committed to give votes to Bush in 2004
• The Diebold Variations (LOL!)
• Verified Voting
• Online Policy Group v. Diebold Inc.

Diebold...

...making machines that vote - so you don't have to.

Interesting...

The Ohio recount, if it happens, won't tip the election to Kerry of course, that would be wishful thinking (I was feeling wishful yesterday). What it may do of course is show how corrupt (if at all) the Diebold voting machines are.

If you're American, and you believe in your constitutional right to scrutinize and monitor what your government does on your behalf (such as y'know, run your elections and contract companies to assist in that), you can donate to the Libertarian/Green recount effort here.

Amanda's on her way up - yay!

There may still be hope.

What's up with Slashdot stories and Firefox?

I hate waking up in the morning more tired than when I went to bed the previous night.

R.I.P. Yasser Arafat.

Spent an interesting night in the pub with a medic from the British Army who has resigned her commision largely over the war in Iraq. Very interesting to hear the truth about what it's like over there, that Basra isn't quite the walk in the park that we've been led in part to believe, but that the British genuinely are received better by the Iraqis than the US soldiers.

Summed up by "we've got rid of the dictator, there were no WMD, it's time for us to get out and leave it to them". This isn't heartless leaving them to it, but out of respect for their ability as a nation and sovereignty as a nation. It's an afront for even us who they dislike less than the US to still be there.

Bring the troops home.

Currently playing: The White Stripes - Hypnotize

It's been a busy, busy day - lectures all morning (for those who are interested in my course's schedule, I had Ancient Greek followed by three hours of Church & Ministry), then lunch, then we watched a video produced by Forward in Faith (or a similar group) opposing the ordination of women, followed by the Yes, Prime Minister episode, The Bishop's Gambit, about the Crown Appointment Committee.

Had an hour or so free, and then I've got a practise in about 10 mins with the band that are playing in chapel tomorrow night, who I'm filling in with on percussion.

Have added Live Bookmarks links to Planet SuSE for the RSS 1.0 and 2.0 versions of the site, as well as for the Planet SuSE News feed.

WTF!

Currently playing: Manic Street Preachers - Archives of Pain

For the first time in ages (and ages and ages) I managed to change the batteries in my Palm m105 without losing all my data and having to restore from a backup. Now, I don't know if this is because also for the first time in quite a while I've opted for a reputable brand of battery rather than buying a supermarket own brand, but I'm a happy bunny (ahem!).

Watched When Harry Met Sally again yesterday. Simply my favorite movie of all time, and yet it always makes me cry (no big feat admittedly).

Currently playing: The Stone Roses - Daybreak

Remember, Christmas is coming...

Pete: Should have asked for one you could smoke

Seems there have been some emails not reaching me - sorry about this, I have sent a support request to my mail hoster, but please bear in mind that if I don't reply to your emails, it may mean I haven't got them.

• Friday was the college community day, I was on the prayer team, which afforded me the opportunity to do what I did for the Noise in Watford earlier in the year - to take photos of the various projects. These are now up in the Photo Gallery.
• Have added live bookmarks to my site, so people using Firefox can now subscribe to my blog if they want to.
  
• Have changed my hackergotchi on Planet SuSE to the same image from the top left of my website.
• Had a big meal at college last night, full on roast pork jobbie, was good to all get together at the weekend, cos otherwise it can be like the Marie Celeste at weekends sometimes.

So, been a bit of a few days. Tragedy in the US, but you've got to respect the dignity of Kerry to concede rather than drag it through the courts. Stayed up till about 4.30am Tuesday night, and then got up about 6.30am Wednesday morning, and I didn't even sleep for the whole of those two hours. Suffice to say, I was seriously tired, and basically out of it on Wednesday. Went to bed at about 6.30 Wednesday evening, slept through to 6.15 this morning, felt a lot more normal today.

GNOME bug #157110 has resulted in me switching to Firefox instead of Galeon. Tried gDesklets for the first time today (and in fact built a package, which I've not uploaded) and I have to say that I like it, and I've (for the time being) replaced GKrellM with it.

I don't like these numbers. Let's assume that Kerry takes Ohio (by no means certain of course), that's 20 more votes. Add Michigan's 17, which he seems likely to get. Wisconsin's too close to call thus far, Iowa looks like it's just going to go for Bush. So, to the South. New Mexico's going to go for Bush, and Nevada's too close to call. Hawaii looks possible for Kerry, but the count has barely started.

So, let's add them up. Kerry has 221 so far, plus 37 for Ohio and Michigan, only makes 258, so even if he takes Ohio, he still really needs Iowa and Nevada.

It's a big ask.

Fifty polls today [Ref] and it's looking damn good for Kerry (and so for the world) tomorrow. American citzens, get out and vote tomorrow. Yes, it matters who for (Vote Kerry!) but it matters more that you participate in the process. Use your vote, use your voice, or you can't complain when you aren't heard.

So, back to those polls. Based on the latest crop, Kerry would have 298 votes in the Electoral College, with a projected final total of 306. That doesn't look as close as we were being led to believe, and so I'm very confident that failing a major electoral fraud, y'know, like was perpetrated in Florida four years ago, so I'm not really holding my breath, Kerry's gonna win tomorrow.

States to watch: CO, FL, MO, NH, NM, NV, OH, PA, VA.

Oh, and who would have guessed that the votemaster is Mr Tanenbaum, whose book I never bought, never mind read when I was reading Computer Science at University.

Gosh, what a week. I've written an essay, about six weeks ahead of it's due date (!), been to my cell group in Watford, had Caz and Cat round for dinner, survived a killer cold and kicked (I hope) my new mortgage lender into submission^*. I've also met up with Hils and Caz for coffee, and got some packages built.

Of course, the best, and most important thing is that I've spent a fairly normal week with Amanda, which has just been bliss. Had fondue tonight - yum!

Back to Nottingham tomorrow, and college life begins again.

Roger notes that Novell's plan is not to liberate SuSE Pro to the community. That's sad, but I can understand their perspective. But know, Novell insiders, that if you ever do, you have a GNOME maintainer ready and waiting.

2.9.1 is due on Monday. Yes, I'm excited, but do I start building that, or stick with 2.8.x? The agony of choice...

America goes to the polls on Tuesday, and it's too close to call. I've been monitoring Electoral-Vote.com, and it's simply too close to call. Thankfully, Florida, with it's important 27 electoral college votes seems to be edging towards Kerry, and the 37 (combined) votes of Ohio and Michigan while currently being called for Bush are essentially a statistical tie (they're well well well within the margin), so this is really all to play for. Yes, I know Florida's well within the margin too, but it's trend has been towards Kerry over time. I also don't buy the latest polling data from Michigan, it suggests a sudden and dramatic collapse in the Kerry vote there, and that doesn't seem likely. All of a sudden, New Jersey looks key, until you consider that the latest poll there calling it not just as a statistical tie, but a very actual tie also suggests a sudden collapse in the Kerry vote. It's also worth considering that the latest poll in NJ is from Strategic Vision, not known for being very left-friendly.

Let's just say I feel confident about Kerry's chances Tuesday.

[Ref]
Obviously, if I was under the control of North Korea, was a Specially Designated Terrorist^* and was planning to use Oracle 10g for the development of nuclear weapons of mass destruction, I'd hold my hands up right there, and say "sorry, I'd better not download this, it would be wrong."

^*Presumably plain old regular average Joe type terrorists are fine, they can use Oracle 10g freely.

Have built hal, dbus and gnome-volume-manager (used SuSE-supplied udev to play safe), but can't get hald to start. Google was amazingly unhelpful on this occasion. Leaving it for now, working on an essay about St Paul's teaching on the Holy Spirit, but will post some errors in the hope that someone will be able to help...

Hard at work!

Okay, I am on fire tonight! Python packages from GNOME Bindings now available. Your install mambo goes a little like this:

apt install ulb-gnome-bindings-python

Taking a break from building those bindings. Having usable Python packages means I can press on with HAL/D-Bus/udev. It also means I can think about building gDesklets.

Okay, the C++ packages from GNOME Bindings 2.8.0 are built, and uploading as I type. Once they're in the APT repository, you can install them with apt install ulb-gnome-bindings-c++.

Python next...

So, apparently, Novell are planning to make the current SuSE Pro Edition a community distribution, in a Fedora style. A Linux Today editorial today says this is a mistake.

I disagree. My feelings on this can be summed up in three words.

Bring. It. On

Bring it on, the SuSE community is strong and committed, on top of the quite simply astounding employees at SuSE subsidiaries around the world and at Ximian, there's the PackMan team doing great work across a huge range of packages, up to date GNOME packages from me, Richard doing great work with APT, which could become the official package management method in a community release of SuSE (and not before time. This community is strong, and we're ready to do what the Fedora community have done, and who knows? Maybe do it better!

Bring. It. On.

Yes, the WLAN adaptor works!

Of course, now I just have my battery life to contend with...

Or, I could just locate the power socket

So, today I finally set up the built in WLAN adapter in my new lappie, using the ndiswrapper module. By setting up ndiswrapper, I was then able to use YaST as normal to set up the adapter, specifying the module. No wireless network here for me to use, but then college seems generally to be a radio dead spot. Anyway, I might find one to test it with at the services on my way home tomorrow.

This leads me to a couple of new packages built and uploaded today, the first is gnome-netstatus, which is part of GNOME 2.8.x, and I'd forgotten to build it till today. The second is the very cool netapplet, as seen in Nat's blog. This hasn't actually had a release yet, so the package is versioned 0.0.0 and is today's CVS.

Planet SuSE has hackergotchis again! Many thanks to Justin for sorting my account out. It's also been updated to the latest Planet code.

Recent updates (yesterday and today):

• Gaim
• Nautilus CD Burner
• File Roller
• gThumb
• gLabels

Hackfest, hackfest, hackfest! Rodrigo's done his first EPlugin (ref) a handy feature, and just look at that code! EPlugin makes it so easy, even I might have a go!

I popped into the Hackfest earlier today, and it seems to be going well, US based hackers are in bed at the moment now though.

Also looking into why AbiCommand seems not to build. Sure it used to, so it's either my new build box, or something's changed since a couple of 2.1.x versions ago.

Preparing Morning Prayer for tomorrow.

Been a week of parties, mostly birthday related. Friday night, had a nice meal on campus, and then a few of us hung out. Saturday we had pizza en masse which rocked. Monday was Jen's birthday, today is Rachel's, Friday is Adam's. So, Monday night, me and Liz took Jen to the pub, and last night we had a big party in honour of the three birthday people.

Going to be a fairly busy rest-of-the-week too, I'm playing at the main college service tomorrow night, and leading morning prayer on Friday, before going home on Friday for reading week. Yay!

Time for another TODO list...

• GNOME Bindings 2.8.0
• HAL/D-Bus/udev
• gnome-volume-manager
• gnome-system-tools
• vino

Uploading AbiWord 2.1.91

Wha-hey! Cat's a hardware hacker!

Wetherspoons curry night at the Last Post in Beeston last night - four of us went, and it was a jolly good time.

So, I've been here nearly three weeks now, so I figured I ought to blog about my life here. First off, here's a photo of where I live. This room is my home at the moment

There's also a lounge and a kitchen down the coridoor, so it that respect it's a bit more like a normal home. The lounge has a TV in too.

There are two pubs in "local" distance - the White Lion (or Lecture Room 7 as it's known at college), which is literally just round the corner. A small local pub which does good real ale. The other is the Cadland, part of the Ember Inns chain, so good real ale again, but different atmosphere, and a twice weekly quiz.

Today, as well as collee stuff, been focused on Totem bug #155362, as well as a crasher in Papaya.

Good morning of Church History lectures. Child Protection orientation stuff in the afternoon. Chilled evening.

We did the Cadland's pub quiz last night, 55/60 - second place, but I claim it as a moral victory for reasons to complex to go into here.

Today's updates:

• abiword (now at 2.1.90 - obsoletes abiword-beta)
• gconf-editor
• gnome-applets
• gtksourceview
• totem

• eog
• evolution
• evolution-data-server
• evolution-webcal
• file-roller
• gal2
• gconf2
• gnome-applets
• gnome-desktop
• gnome-panel
• gnome-session
• gnome-system-monitor
• gnome-themes
• gnome-utils
• gtkhtml2
• libgtop
• libwnck
• ximian-connector
• yelp

• eel
• epiphany
• epiphany-extensions
• gedit
• gimp-beta
• glib2
• gnome-games
• gnome-vfs2
• gnumeric
• libgda
• libgnomedb
• libsoup
• metacity
• nautilus
• nautilus-cd-burner
• sound-juicer
• totem

Yay! Will be moving house very soon!

Not sold our house yet, but that's another story...

I'd noticed an issue in Nautilus with GNOME 2.8 where when you double-clicked an icon for a file (a .png for example), it opped up an error dialog saying "There was an error launching the application". Am just uploading a new ULB GNOME package that fixes this. It adds a SuSEconfig component to ensure that update-desktop-database is run whenever SuSEconfig is (which, let's face it is pretty often).

Time to start adding those MIME types to the .desktop files included in ULB GNOME I guess...

Went to Nottingham LUG last night, interesting talk on OO Perl, followed by drinks, and some oohing and ahing at my beast of a laptop.

• gnome-pilot[-conduits] 2.0.12
• gcalctool 5.5.5
• libgda/libgnomedb 1.1.6

Updated builds yesterday and today:

• Gnumeric 1.3.90 (and libgsf 1.10.1)
• Epiphany 1.4.1 (and matching extensions package)

Will be rebuilding gnome-themes to remove the Spheres and Crystals theme, as it crashes badly with GTK+ 2.4 (and has been obsoleted).

Hoping to make it to Nottingham LUG on Wednesday.

I love how Roger is paranoid enough for all of us.

Rog, hat's off to ya!

Ever have pone of those "DOH!" moments?

Just had one...

Had forgotten to --addsign all my packages since I created the keypair to sign them with. Boy, do I feel dumb...

Amanda made it up okay, we went to Nandos in Nottingham last night, and today's she's at the spouses' induction at college, which gives her a chance to at least have some contact with the college community.

Also, the webcam is now back online in my college room - you won't see me sleep, and you certainly won't see me getting changed, but you will see me work.

Have built, and am uploading ULB GNOME 2.8.0.1. It's a brown paper bag release that I'm not bothering to code name (call it the "Release With No Name" if you like). Changes from 2.8.0 are:

• Tidy up ULB supplied Panel menu entries
• Updated gnome-panel to 2.8.0.1
• Updated GDM to 2.6.0.5, and made it use the same GTK+ theme by default as ULB GNOME. Also, include the SuSE theme that is removed by installing ULB GNOME - allowing people to use that if they so desire.

Have also updated control-center2 to include a menu entry for the control centre itself, in the Preferences submenu. But, it doesn't seem to work. Trying to figure out why. Watch this space.

Amanda's on her way up for the weekend - yay!

Update: Control Center menu entry issue resolved - rebuilding and will upload shortly.

Wow, seems that Kerry kicked Bush's behind in the debate. I didn't manage to see it, but judging from comments posted on the BBC site, even Republicans in the south found Kerry to be a better choice as President based on the debate. My favorite comment was this:

"Anyone who watched the debate and thinks the Bush-Kerry debate was a draw or that Kerry didn't win hands-down probably still believes there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein had a part in 9/11, and that Santa Claus really does exist. Kerry was by far the winner. Coherent, clear, convincing, next to Bush's boring repetition of cliché, after cliché, after cliché."

WARNING: Very personal and Christian blog entry follows

So, I'm on the penultimate day of Intro Week at college, and I wanted to get some thoughts down about it, especially as the college encourages us to keep a journal of these things. This is my journal.

We had a talk this morning on Spiritual Growth at College, although it was commented that it sounded more like a talk on Spiritual Survival. Right now, I'll gladly accept survival. This has been a mostly horrible week, it seems that my life has been completely pulled apart with having to move up here on my own, and the house sale falling through. For most of the week I've been barely holding myself together, the rest of the time I've not really even managed that. I don't understand where God is in this (I suspect He's somewhere in it, and I'm trying really hard to trust Him), and I feel like emotionally I'm a raw open wound a lot of the time.

I thought I was feeling a bit better this morning, until that talk, which included a lot of talk about spouses, and the college community. Didn't cope very well, because for me the most important member of the college community isn't here. There's been so much this week and I don't know that I've really taken any of it in because my mind is always on that single issue.

I promised people at Church before coming up that I would blog prayer requests, so it's a simple one - that our house would sell soon, and it would go through speedily.

Didn't sleep great, and am up really early (don't need to head over to the academic block for another 20 mins or so, and have already dealt with all my mail. Am now doing an apt upgrade - new mplayerplug-in build amongst others.

Plan to start my intro week practise mini-essay today, as well as building Evo 2.0.1. Also hoping to get packages of gLabels built now that 2.0 is out (yes, I know it has been a while, I just forgot to build it with 2.8.0 )

The possibility of producing OOo packages came a step closer yesterday - I did my first successful ooo-build compile and install yesterday - took basically all day, but the end result is such an improvement. It didn't like the splash screen I designed for some reason, will try to figure that out, cos I can't really produce packages that are full of notes about being provided by SuSE can I? Screenshots of OOo using the new GtkFileChooser will appear soon.

Updated and uploaded yesterday and today:

• abiword
• gimp
• sound-juicer

These will appear in the APT repository soon.

Also submitted (and had committed) a new gnome-suse.png for gnome-desktop.

Okay, this seems the best way to address the various issues people have emailed me about with ULB GNOME. I'll deal with the ones I know the answer to, there are some (especially with Evolution) that I think are caused by AMD CPUs apparently. I suggest you consult Google if your question is not answered here, or in subsequent blog entries.

Right, the libgcrypt problem. This is caused by people having the suse-people APT component in their APT sources.list. Now, personally, I don't use suse-people, and if asked, I recommend that people don't unless they really don't mind the risk of hosing their system. The contents of /pub/people on ftp.suse.com can include very bleeding edge builds of stuff, some of which is core to a system (I'm sure I've seen glibc in there before. It's even more use at your own risk than anything else. If you're using suse-people, I suggest you rebuild the packages. That may sound harsh, but I won't add it to my sources.list. (This is also the reason I have a build of libxslt in usr-local-bin.

Threaded gtk2 packages. I've not looked into this yet, but I've not deliberately made them thread enabled, so it's the default. What I'll do is look into doing non-threaded builds parallel to the threaded ones.

Someone emailed about gdm being requiring libcroco.so.2, and so not installing. This isn't the case with the 2.4.4.7 package I have installed. For information look through this:

ogley@riggwelter:~> rpm -q --whatprovides libcroco.so.2
no package provides libcroco.so.2
ogley@riggwelter:~> rpm -q --provides libcroco
libcroco-0.6.so.3
libcroco = 0.6.0-100.SuSE.ulb.1
ogley@riggwelter:~> rpm -q --whatprovides libcroco.so.3
no package provides libcroco.so.3
ogley@riggwelter:~> rpm -q --whatprovides libcroco
libcroco-0.6.0-100.SuSE.ulb.1
ogley@riggwelter:~> rpm -q --requires gdm
/usr/sbin/useradd
/bin/sh
rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1
rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1
/bin/sh
libICE.so.6
libORBit-2.so.0
libORBitCosNaming-2.so.0
libSM.so.6
libX11.so.6
libXext.so.6
libart_lgpl_2.so.2
libasound.so.2
libatk-1.0.so.0
libaudiofile.so.0
libbonobo-2.so.0
libbonobo-activation.so.4
libbonoboui-2.so.0
libbz2.so.1
libc.so.6
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.0)
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.1)
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.1.3)
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.2)
libc.so.6(GLIBC_2.3)
libcrypto.so.0.9.7
libdl.so.2
libesd.so.0
libgconf-2.so.4
libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0
libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so.0
libglade-2.0.so.0
libglib-2.0.so.0
libgmodule-2.0.so.0
libgnome-2.so.0
libgnomecanvas-2.so.0
libgnomeui-2.so.0
libgnomevfs-2.so.0
libgobject-2.0.so.0
libgsf-1.so.1
libgthread-2.0.so.0
libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0
libjpeg.so.62
libm.so.6
libm.so.6(GLIBC_2.0)
libpam.so.0
libpam_misc.so.0
libpango-1.0.so.0
libpangoft2-1.0.so.0
libpangox-1.0.so.0
libpangoxft-1.0.so.0
libpopt.so.0
libpthread.so.0
libpthread.so.0(GLIBC_2.0)
librsvg-2.so.2
librt.so.1
libssl.so.0.9.7
libwrap.so.0
libxml2.so.2
libz.so.1
ogley@riggwelter:~> rpm -q gdm
gdm-2.4.4.7-100.SuSE.ulb.1

AbiWord requires libgucharmap.so.3, this is provided by the gucharmap package, which I think will be in the base component.

Problems with libgnutls.so.10 as a dep I think are also down to the suse-people component, or due to just not having gnutls installed - it's in the base component.

multisync-evolution - if you don't use it, uninstall it Alternatively, rebuild multisync-evolution, or I might doa build myself. I don't have it on my system, so I missed this problem. (I use gnome-pilot, which works great with evolution-pilot-2.0.0, and at some point I'll do updated builds of it, and the conduits package too.)

'/etc//opt/gnome/pango/pango.modules' 
You may be able to recreate this file by running pango-querymodules.

I think this is down to the mode of /opt/gnome/lib/pango being set incorrectly for some reason. I thought I'd fixed this in the latest packages, and only one person has mentioned it. Anyway... As root, chmod -R 755 /opt/gnome/lib/pango

And now, I should get back to preparing my intro week practise essay.

Update: Close pre tag.

Thanks to John Pettigrew who pointed out that both RSS links were broken, these are now fixed.

Have arrived at college, within the next few days the webcam will be back online from my college room. In fact, it's already in place, but, because it's attached to the Crappy Old Laptop^TM, and I forgot to bring a Cat 5 cable to uplink my hub to the college LAN, it's going to have to wait a bit.

Visited Trent Vineyard this evening, saw Sarah and Rachel and Andy, which was cool. Nice to see some familiar faces. Also, now that I've worshipped God on an industrial estate, Nottingham feels a bit more like home.

Induction Week starts in earnest tomorrow. MIght be an idea if I unpacked some clothes before then I guess...

Have had a few emails about small issues people have had with ULB GNOME 2.8.0, if you're one of the people who's emailed me, and you're reading this, don't be offended if it takes me a bit of time to get back to you - it's just that I'm knackered, and want to make sure I'm thinking straight when I answer them.

[Reproduced from the SLE list]

That's right, a mere week and a half since the GNOME Platform and Desktop 2.8.0 was released, I'm happy to announce the availability of ULB GNOME 2.8.0 "Precedent, baby!".

Features include:

• Evolution 2.0 - the new GNOME mail and groupware suite.
• GNOME Panel/Evolution integration - view your Evolution appointments from the GNOME Panel Clock.
• Gaim/Evolution integration - Gaim 1.0.0 is also available, and these packages are built with support for dragging contacts from Evolution, if they have IM IDs specified.
• Tweaked default interface, including new default wallpaper to match the GDM theme and splash.
• Galeon 1.3.17 - the latest version of the default ULB browser, based on Mozilla 1.7.2.
• New theme "Glider" available through GNOME theme selector.
• Improved method for adding items to the Panel.

Other packages will hopefully appear soon such as the remote desktop software and the GNOME System Tools. Also, expect an updated control- center2 package soon to fix the vanishing menu entries :)

These packages, as well as updated abiword, abiword-beta and gimp packages are available from the usr-local-bin APT component, or from http://usr-local-bin.org/rpms.

Uploading ULB GNOME 2.8.0 and associated packages. Have also got AbiWord 2.0.11 2.1.8 built, and they too are uploading. They should be available by APT later today.

Closed Evolution bug #61412.

Rodrigo mentioned my Evo 2.0 screenshot on the Evo list. Thanks man.

Okay, so I finally created a package of my GPG pubkey for signing packages (see the RPMs section to get it, and I've started building GNOME 2.8.0. Packages will start appearing in the usr-local-bin APT component over the next couple of days. Coming in the ULB builds, as well as everything that's new in GNOME 2.8, tweaks to the default ULB GNOME look.

Update: Preview screenshot of ULB GNOME 2.8.0.

Warning: I installed the kernel-smp package, version 2.6.8-20040921165941 from the Kernel of the Day repository today, and my laptop wouldn't boot. Had to rescue it using the rescue mode on the DVD and the --root option to rpm.

Gyah, our buyer's pulled out. This stinks. And for no good reason.

On a happier note, laptop is now fully installed, and I'm using it. Just need to get encrypted DVD playback working, and I'll be a very happy bunny.

New laptop is here, and it's gorgeous. Initial SuSE install is complete already thanks to the seriously fast P4 and 1G of RAM, online update is in progress. After that, I'll APT it, rsync my home directory, and weasel's /usr/src/packages on to it, and be good to go, oh, and ready to start building 2.8 - it's going to be so much faster than even building on weasel is.

Serious kudos to Justin for the quick turn-around on Planet SuSE. I probably ought to change the powered by comment in the sidebar.

Wasp nest has been erradicated (or rather within 24 - 48 hours they will all have died), which is a result. The guy who did it was pretty cool, he knocked on the door, we opened it, and he introduced himself "hi, Wasp Man". Schweet.

Core network at home is now 100Mbps - replaced my 10Mbps hub with a new Netgear FS605 switch. Once in Nottingham, the living branch of the LAN will be 10Mbps, cos the hub will be in there, but at least the main bit, where all the servers are will still be at the faster speed.

New laptop will be here tomorrow, and I might even get around to starting building those 2.8 packages

Have a wasp nest in the loft, complete with residents - going to have to get someone in to get rid of it, so we can get stuff out of the loft ahead of moving next Sunday.

Have been at Pete & Sue's flat warming this afternoon, really great time, nice flat, good people and great cake!

Will hopefully start building 2.8 tomorrow, and HAL allowing, might include g-v-m. Also, many thanks to the anonymous (not to me - just to avoid their blushes) benefactors who have made it possible for me to order the laptop tomorrow. I should have it, and have installed SuSE/ULB in time for college, which is a real result.

Pinnacle leaving do was great, really nice meal, good to see the guys again, and they bought me Season One of Will & Grace on DVD, and an Amazon UK voucher.

Last night was our unofficial Church leaving do, organised and hosted by Paul and Caroline, and it was a fantastic time, reall enjoyed it. Also, we'd said we didn't want them to get us anything, they disobeyed, and bought us a domain each, jamesthevicar.com and amandaloveshamsters.com. How sweet!

Full of cold (have been the last few days), but surviving.

Webcam is now running on it's own machine, complete with pwcxmodule. swamprat version of blog is now gone.

Had coffee with Caz, upgraded my mobile, downloaded GNOME 2.8.0 sources ready for building.

Pinnacle leaving do tonight at the Colney Fox - should be a good time.

RAM was delivered yesterday morning, home is now running on the new swamprat

Blog is now, finally, here - please adjust your references.

Stage Three (final leg) of our Great Lasagne Marathon tonight. Carole and Andrew for dinner, it's going to be fabulous!

The Business Post driver didn't take my parcel out with him. A fact I only learnt when I called them at about 16:00 to find out when exactly to expect them. They'll now be delivering on Wednesday since i have things to do during the day tomorrow.

Avoid Business Post like the plague after my initial optimism they've proved themselves to be as bad if not worse than other courier firms.

Have been waiting in the living room ALL DAY waiting for Business Post to deliver my RAM, and still nothing. I don't dare go anywhere in the house for fear of missing them. They couldn't even give me a window of time that they might appear during, so until they arrive, I'm imprisoned in the living room.

And I had such plans for today as well, they're all going to have to wait.

2.8.0 come sout on Wednesday, inclination to build 2.7.92 waning - will wait for the big final release.

Wow, what a day already, done a kitchen-filling load of washing up, and prepared a lasagne ahead of Caz coming round tonight.

TV situation is sorted. Carole's six month old widescreen is redundant now that she's getting married, so we're buying it off her.

We should never forget. But equally, we in the west must stop behaving in the manner that makes people feel that this is the only way to make their voices heard.

I am no longer a Pinnacle employee, I have finished, I am at home.

The webcam is now back online. It's nasty and grainy at the moment. Having to use the pwc module, without the pwcx plugin. The later version of the module (now zombified alas) requires kernel patching and rebuilding, and frankly, I can't be bothered to do that on weasel, when the cam will be moving to chipmunk next week. I'll do it there. So, at the moment, I'm resizing a 160x120 image up to 320x240.

Well, this is my last day at Pinnacle. I've cleared my desk, removed my video card from my workstation (and set up the i865 it has onboard), and I leave at 16:30 BST.

Tick tock...

Have created an OOo splash screen based on Happy GNOME (the ULB GNOME default GDM theme and splash) for if I decide to do OOo packages based upon ooo-build.

Yes that's right, it's my penultimate day at Pinnacle today. That means I have my exit interview this morning to tell them what a rotten company they are, and how I'm leaving just to get out!

Our TV died last night, just in time for my two weeks off when I was planning to watch a fair bit of telly. Going to have to get a new one. Might finally go for widescreen. Three SCART/AV inputs would be handy too for the Sky box, VCR and DVD player. (If I could get a deal of a TV and a nice amplifier, that would be even better, to stop me having to switch the audio input to our current stereo everytime we change from the Sky box to the DVD player).

My blog has moved to here, which when my site's hosting changes next week will be this location. The swamprat.homeunix.org version will remain for a while, but probably not for long, so please amend any references you have to it.

Also, www.usr-local-bin.org is now a ServerAlias to www.rubberturnip.org.uk.

All kudos withdrawn. Seems the person who told me the delivery address could be changed didn't know what she was talking about. Have no arranged for the RAM to be delivered to me at home next Monday. When I will of cource be at home, having finished work this coming Friday, at 16:30 BST.

Had I mentioned it's my last week at work?

I'll also finally be pulling my finger out and starting to build 2.7.92 next week, as well as finally starting to GPG sign my packages. Don't really know what's taken me so long to do it, but I just ever got around to it.

Emailed Nottingham LUG to say hi ahead of moving up. It's about time I got back involved with a LUG. It's been about six years since LILO (Linux In Lancaster Organisation), the predecessor to Lancaster LUG gave up the ghost. Haven't been to a LUG meeting since.

Well, this is my last week at Pinnacle now, time is ticking away. Also, found out yesterday that the job has been filled. Commiserations to those who applied and didn't get it. Everyone we interviewed was a strong candidate, but there could only be one "winner".

Business Post utterly failed to deliver my RAM yesterday, so any kudos I sent their way is revoked.

Tonight was the BBC's Test the Nation Pop Music Quiz. I got 50 correct out of 70 questions, which beat the average of each group in the studio except the celebrities (who I tied with). Amanda was keen to point out that I was helped significantly by my unnatural knowledge of boy bands, and to some degree, musicals. I can't help being that fabulous.

Watched Aliens (Special Edition) this afternoon. Before a couple of months ago, I hadn't seen any of the Alien movies (bizarre, I know), so I borrowed a boxed set fro mmy colleage Amy. Of course, I now have a week to watch the last two. Really enjoyed Aliens. I thought Alien was rather pedestrian, slow and frankly boring when I watched that.

Couldn't be bothered driving to Hemel this morning, so I rang the courier firm, who were very helpful. I'd like to congratulate Business Post for their customer service. Not only was the woman I spoke polite and curteous, but because my work address is in the same postal area as my home address, they were happy to change the delivery address to there. It'll arrive Monday.

And now, I'm going back to bed

Okay, so I'm feeling pretty good now about getting the RAM tomorrow. Once the new swamprat has that extra RAM in it, and I've switched operations over to it, things are going to be so much better.

• This blog is going to be a lot more responsive
• NFS on my home LAN is going to be faster (this would be improved more if I replace my old 10M hub with a 100M one
• My webcam will be back online, in my study at home - those night time LED shots are great, I miss them, and I want them back^*

^*The reason for this is that current swamprat will be renamed chipmunk, and have SuSE 9.1 installed, with the kernel of the day package so I have the pwc.ko kernel module to drive the cam. Obviously I don't want to use an experimental kernel build on a machine that does anything else.

So, as of tomorrow, once that's all done, an inventory of my computers at home will look like this (in no real order)

• swamprat PIII 550MHz, 192M web/mail/file/print/NIS server
• capybara Pentium MMX 166MHz, 128M DNS/squid/NTP server
• chipmunk Pentium 133MHz, 48M webcam attached
• weasel Athlon XP 1700+ 1474MHz, 768M desktop/build machine
• riggwelter PII 233MHz, 96M crappy old laptop^TM

And at some point, they'll be joined by this which I'll need to name at some point.

The RAM was delivered today. Or rather, a delivery was attempted, but noone was in and so the courier took it back to their depot, in Hemel Hemstead. So now I have to drive to Hemel on Saturday, when I was hoping to start building 2.7.92. Oh well...

Don't bother building mozilla packages no more, just use the SuSE ones, it'll speed up desktop builds, and make my life so much easier.

swamprat's RAM is ordered, should have it tomorrow, tripling it's available memory, I'll do the switchover to it when I install it to minimise downtime.

Update: 2.7.92 - what timing!

weasel is back - new PSU fitted, rocking and rolling. Didn't get the extra RAM for swamprat (new machine) because for some odd reason it was a lot more expensive in the PC World shop than on their website, will just web order it instead.

Come on 2.7.92, I'm ready to build ya...

New swamprat switchover and weasel repair will be done after a trip to PC World to buy a bit of extra RAM for the new swamprat, and a PSU for weasel, or failing that, I'll order one from their component website. Just in time for 2.8 RC1. A couple of releases have slipped (2.7.90 and 2.7.91), but it'll be good to get it built and uploaded at last. Also good that I've not missed out on a 2.7 release during weasel's downtime.

Now, non-geek stuff. We bought a house, and have a completed chain. All the solicitor stuff can now get in motion (as soon as the people we're buying from have one that is) and hopefully it won't take too long. The promised details of our sale are that we've sold to a cash buyer, who also happens to be a first-time buyer, so no lower chain, and no mortgage searches required. The searches for the person buying our house were going to be the single biggest delaying factor in the chain, as there's apparently a real backlog for these in Watford, so that's a bit of a result. Still going to have to move up without Amanda at first, and just use a room in college until we complete, but at least now that intervening time will be shorter all being well.

New swamprat is initially installed, online update in process.

Up to Nottingham tomorrow, our house fell through while we were down in Somerset, so we're looking at four more in the hope that one of them suits.

No joy getting a new PSU for weasel as yet. Maplin, and a small local component shop have none in, going to try PC World. Would be a 28 day turnaround from Maplin unless I wanted to drive to their Uxbridge branch. Did confirm that it is the PSU that's gone this morning though. Plugged the old PSU in (the one that cuts out randomly and frequently), and it powered up. Switched back, in case it was just not seated right, and it blew up. Sparks and smoke flew out of the PSU's exhaust fan. Pretty impressive, but a little bit scary too.

Home from Soul Survivor now, quite tired, but feeling good.

House sold while we were away, details to follow, and about to start setting up the machine that's going to be the new swamprat.homeunix.org, so downtime is more than likely for a while.

Update:Have decided to do the new swamprat install tomorrow, because Amanda's going out during the day. Only made this decision after having downed the current swamprat, losing my 111 day uptime in the process.

While I was away, seems Bush is trying to hijack the Olympics to aid his campaign ahead of the Republic congress. How low will that man stoop?

Four more years? No thanks...

I read this story in the Independent this morning. I almost wept.

Off down to Passion for Your Name today, blogging will be sporadic at best for the coming week or so, and I'll almost certainly not be reading email.

[Ref]
Welcome back Justin and Aimee, hope you had a great honeymoon, can't wait to see the photos.

Welcome to the fun fun fun of house-hunting and mortgage procurement.

Okay, so now I have to face up to the fact that I'm not going to get 2.7.90 built before I go to Passion For Your Name tomorrow night for two very good reasons - my build machine est morté, and it's not been released yet anyway. So this means that the plan of action for the site and eveything when I get back is now as follows:

• Get new PSU for weasel
• Make www.usr-local-bin.org a ServerAlias for www.rubberturnip.org.uk, with references to the APT repositories
• I now have direct control of the usr-local-bin APT repository (and there'll be a new one, suser-jogley coming soon of non-GNOME packages), so when I've got it built, upload 2.7.xx into it
• Close the ulb-announce mailing list

Amanda found out this afternoon she can transfer her job to the Nottingham office, which is a real result. Just need someone to buy our house now...

Had Caz round for a ruby tonight, had a delicious lamb balti, some good wine and a great chat as always. Also, England won against Ukraine in the footy, which is another real result.

Really starting to like Firefox, I've been a loooong time user of Galeon, but on the PII 233 laptop I'm having to use until I get a new PSU for weasel, Firefox seems a lot quicker. I've installed the Nuvola theme to fit my GNOME sensibilities, and added the AdBlock and Googlebar extensions, and it's just, well, what a browser should be. Nice.

In the office at 7:15 this morning to do more IPSO upgrades, so tired. Took the company Golf GTI last night so I could get in early enough this morning. Still unsure as to whether I like that car. Fun to drive, and plenty of poke, but the seats are very uncomfortable, and the clutch has virtually no give at all. Oh, and the shift into fifth is a little bit tough...

Today, I have done two remote IPSO upgrades, and tomorrow I shall be doing three more. I am so the man!

Watched Moulin Rouge! on Saturday with Jen. Loved it, funny and moving. Yes, I cried. Yes, I laughed. Yes, I sang along (especially when the songs were by David Bowie). I love a good musical, and Moulin Rouge is just that. Fantastic!

Amanda headed down to Somerset on Friday night, so I've been fending for myself over the weekend (and will continue to do so for the rest of this week). She's down for Soul Survivor C: Living Loud, which starts today. Went shoe shopping on Saturday, and bought a couple of very nice pairs. Thing is that having got home, I discovered that the power supply in weasel appears to have died. weasel is my desktop machine, and more importantly, my build machine for ULB GNOME, which I am determined to get one full build of done and out the door before I go to Nottingham. It had powered itself off (apparently), and I couldn't power it back up. Switched kettle lead in case it was just that the fuse had gone. No dice. And I'd just spent on shoes what I could have used to get a new PSU. What makes it worse is that it now (with the passage of a bit of time) seems to matter a lot less, because I got two good pairs of shoes - what is wrong with me?

As a side note, I've had weasel for about 2^1/2 years now, it's based around an AthlonXP 1700+, which I think is now the only original piece component in it. I've had no end of problems with it, and have actually already had to replace the PSU once because the previous one kept just cutting out randomly. I really want to replace it with this laptop for me to use as my desktop/build machine, and Amanda can then have weasel all to herself rather than having to wait for me to finish with it to check her email. (It'll also make life at college a hell of a lot easier)

It's certainly the last time I bother to self-build...

Interviewing for my job starts today, I've never been on the interviewer side of the desk before - exciting...

[Ref]
Michael Owen has been left on the bench, fuelling speculation Liverpool are prepared to sell the England international.

Bye bye Michael...

Steven Gerrard just put us in front on about 22 minutes, our first competitive goal under Benitez. First of many let's hope...

Update:
That's it, Baros appears injured, and Benitez is warming up not Owen, but Sinama-Pongolle. He'll go to Real, and I reckon we'll get Fernando Morientes and a dollop of cash in return.