Journal of PlanetMike

Last night my DSL at home, Verizon.net, died. Resetting the modem and connection, and then the router didn’t make any difference. So I luckily found a phone number, and called. I used the voice navigation system to let Verizon know that I was having connection problems. The first response from Verizon? Check their web site at onlinehelp.verizon.net. Hello, McFly? I’m having connection problems.

I’m seriously leaning towards rebuilding my Powerbook with as much open source software as I can. Is any one out there using Scribus? It is a desktop publishing system. From their web site: “Scribus brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, MacOSX and Windows desktops with a combination of “press-ready” output and new approaches to page layout.” Well, it certainly might be, but right now it’s not doing anything except “building font caches.”

OK, I take that back, it’s now complaining I don’t have Ghost Script installed, so I can’t use Print Preview. Bah! I just dragged the folder where I was told to drag it. OK, so maybe I need to tell it explicitly where it is in the Preferences. Quote: “After that the Ghostscript executable is located at:
/Library/Frameworks/Ghostscript.framework/bin/gsc
You should enter this location in Edit->Preferences->External Tools.” I enter that, and still no Print Preview.

Maybe I should restart Scribus so it will re-read the preferences. Tada! I now have Print Preview, and the program came up much quicker now that it has read my font information. Now, on to play.

I recently installed Ubuntu Desktop Linux on an older Windows PC (Goodbye Window XP!). Then I wanted to listen to my Internet radio station, but the software I needed wasn’t installed by default. This is how I got the right software onto the system:

1. On the Applications menu (top left of the screen), choose Add/Remove… (at the bottom of the menu)
2. Click on the Sound and Video section on the left.
3. Click “Show unsupported applications.”
4. You may be prompted to install some helper applications. Allow it, you’ll need to enter your system password.
5. After a few minutes, you can check both StreamTuner and Xmms Music Player.
6. Hit the OK button in the lower right corner.
7. You’ll be asked “Apply the following changes?” Hit the “Apply” button.
8. Type your system password.
9. On the Applications menu, choose Accessories then Terminal.
10. Type streamtuner (all lowercase, no space) and press enter. (Is there a way to add Streamtuner to the menu?)
11. You can now search for Live365 streams, or Shoutcast streams. (My Christmas Music Radio Station is ChristmasMusic24/7, named planetmike on Live365)
12. Doubleclicking a stream should open the stream in xmms.

I hate getting the 6 zillion page phone book thrown on my doorstep a few times a year. I get one from Verizon, and a couple from competitors. Why in the world would a business spend upwards of $500 for a listing in the dead tree pages? I love that someone has started Yellowikis: the yellow pages for the 21st century. It’s a community edited free listing of businesses around the world! There is something to this, after all Yell Publishing is scared, Yell Publishing is suing Yellowikis for infringing a trademark. Look out Yellow Cabs, you’re next!

I’m getting ready to entirely rebuild my Powerbook, so I’ve been looking around at my choices for the software I use. I’ll shortly be writing about the software that ends up on my fresh Powerbook. One of my goals is to use Open Source Software, then free software, then commercial software.

I found an open source feed reader, Vienna. I was getting a bit frustrated with Net News Wire Lite, so I didn’t mind jumping ship. Today, not 18 hours after getting Vienna installed, a new version of NNW was released. Another evaluation coming up.

It’s not illegal (or shouldn’t be if the coffee shop didn’t try to protect itself) It’s not even rude, that’s the way the ball bounces. All he had to do was go in and buy the smallest cup of coffee or a cough drop or bagel or something and he’d be ok. Did the shop have a Terms of Service on their signal? That’s fairly easy to do with open source software.

Original Article: The Internet Patrol: Man Charged with Theft of Services for Using Free Wifi at Coffee Shop in for a Brewed Awakening