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Upgrade made easy …. Ubuntu

On April 20, 2007

Ubuntu Screenshot

I have to admit that the upgrade procedure in Ubuntu is yet another tick in the positive column in regards to the distribution. My install isn’t even a standard install and using the upgrade tool to upgrade from 6.10 (Edgy Eft) to 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) was a breeze.
I’m not sure why Ubuntu chooses to use these strange monikers to refer to releases, as most other linux distributions still use release version numbers. Even Apple still uses (mostly) version numbers (10.4.9) with the exception to the huge releases which are usually major version number changes (i.e. Panther, Tiger (10.4), Leopard (10.5?) (now delayed until June or August due to developers being pulled from OS X and put on iPhone)). I think back to the changes of naming of major releases and I can’t help starting to think about Microsoft and their changes from Windoze 3.1 and 3.11 to using years (95, 98) to using names (me, XP, and of course Vista (and all it’s various flavors). Likewise, we somewhere seem to have lost the use of version numbers in most Microsoft products (Office used to have version numbers, then years (2003), then names (XP (can’t remember which one came first … the banana or the egg)), and I now they are just moving to marketing terms (to try to keep Google and other “software as a service” models from gaining (more) market share) like Office Live (ROFLMAO) and yet they are back to (or continuing to) use years (Office 2007).

Server migration

By Sid Boswell

On April 12, 2007

In Blog, Linux

Ubuntu Logo

I’ve migrated just about everything from my iMac to Elvis (my Ubuntu Linux server running on my old Pentium desktop). If there are any gaping holes in any of my information please let me know (i.e. if there is anything that did not get migrated).
Now that I am (mostly) migrated, I’ll start to play around with some other LAMP based services for fun (forums, blogs, etc.).
I’ll usually post my updates to this blog or the news page on the wiki.

Unbunt-who?

By Sid Boswell

On April 10, 2007

In Blog, Linux

Ubuntu

Now that I’m just about fully converted off of my old PC, I’ve decided to have some fun with it. Some folks wonder how I can consider this fun, but to each his own.
I’ve decided to try to live without Windoze. I’m sure that I”ll have to run it for some things (Stacie really likes the buttons on the front of the scanner that make “copies”), but most of those things can be done in a virtual machine. I won’t delete my XP partitions just yet, but will attempt to use native XP (as opposed to XP in a VM) as little as possible.
I started with downloading some of the live CDs/DVDs for some Linux distributions to figure out which ones I like. I tried Mandriva, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, CentOS, and openSUSE. I really liked KDE in Kubuntu, but am more comfortable with GNOME and it seems more stable and a bit faster. I narrowed my search down to CentOS, SUSE, and Ubuntu.
Next, I decided to actually install the distributions that I liked and take a whorl at configuring them and getting things set up like I like them (LAMP + Parallels + a few other odds and ends). Here is what I discovered….

I updated the photos on my website…

By Sid Boswell

On March 26, 2007

In Blog, Life

Chilis on the grill

I created a page for our pictures from Amsterdam and while I was at it, I added photos to the random and dog pages as well.

Amsterdam

By Sid Boswell

On March 21, 2007

In Blog, Life

I amsterdam

Stacie and I went to Amsterdam for a week for her Spring Break vacation. It was a great trip. We visited the three museums, got outside of the city to visit Delft, Den Haag, and Leiden, visited with some friends and had some great meals. The weather was great for most of the trip with the exception of the freak freezing rain storm that caught us by surprise the day before we left. We flew out in snow so we couldn’t have timed the trip any better.
Now that I’m home, I’ve brewed a couple of batches for the Vet School Open House party which will be at our house on 3/30/2007. I’m also planning on making some homemade root beer before the party.
I need to update my photo albums with the Amsterdam trip as well as post some additional pictures of Monster Truck, our new dog.
I’ve also got to take the job search seriously now as I have no excuse now that we are home from our short vacation.

Brewmaster Sid

By Sid Boswell

On February 26, 2007

In Blog, Life

Boiling Wort

Not a whole hell of a lot going on. I have been playing with the wiki a lot. I’ve enabled some fun extensions and have been importing data from other wikis to use as a base for some of my extension development testing. I’ve also procured a couple of domains and have entered into a hosting arrangement to host some of the things I’ve been working on so that they aren’t running on my home server. A big thanks to those that have assisted, and please feel free to continue to play around with the BoswellWiki.
I brewed a batch of beer over the weekend. I was making a Sierra Nevada Stout clone, that I call Polemonium Stout. It was the first batch in several months, and it showed. My temps got high to begin with, dropped too low when I was trying to compensate which I couldn’t correct for as I hadn’t thought far enough ahead (nor remembered from previous similar situations) to have boiling water sitting on my extra (homebrew) stove. By the end of the brew day, I drank a few beers with Courtney, who came over to watch, and I think the beer will be a success. It might not have the exact malt profile I was shooting for (as the temps got too low, it may be more fermentable than designed). It is bubbling away now and smells great. Brewing beer is all about ditching the stress and making beer. Papazian couldn’t have coined a better phrase when he said, “Relax, Don’t Worry, Have a Homebrew.”

The BoswellWiki goes live

By Sid Boswell

On January 25, 2007

In Blog, Life

BoswellWiki

I’ve spent the last few days installing various applications on my iMac and messing around with a lot of Unix style hacking. The goal and the completed end result is a live running wiki. I’m not sure where I”m going with it yet, but I would love to do something commercial with the wiki at a future date. I’ve kicked around several ideas in my own head as well as talked to some other folks to see what they think.
The page is still a work in progress, but I encourage anyone who wants to to poke around and wiki to their hearts content.

Finally getting around to some stuff….

By Sid Boswell

On January 23, 2007

In Blog, Life

Camel

So I’m finally getting around to playing around with my server and updating my blog. There are a few of reasons for this, the primary one being that I am currently unemployed, and the secondary one being that the Comcast/Adelphia transfer for my market (sys/prin) has actually happened. Now that I’m on the Comcast network, I can actually serve up web pages from my own computer, rather than have it hosted somewhere. Continue to check back as I have started writing some code in Perl and have installed a MySql database on my iMac. I’ll be playing around with various things to create a fun site for me to get some practice with and for others to browse and leave comments.

I've updated my albums

By Sid Boswell

On October 12, 2006

In Blog, Life

Still playing around creating web pages, I added a bunch of new photos to the site. You can check them all out here….

Puppy

Rome

NOLS and other

Random and other neat pictures

Of course, you can always start at the main photos link to see the Alaska pictures.
Please use the comments fields here or just send me an e-mail and let me know if there is some changes you would recommend or additions you would like to see (I’ve got a ton more pictures that I need to continue to post.

Posting more pictures

By Sid Boswell

On October 11, 2006

In Blog, Life

Eagle drying himself

I finally got around to posting more Alaska photos. I’ll be posting other albums later this week (like new puppy pictures).
Enjoy the photos.