Home › Blog ›

It's Just this Little Chromium Switch Here

Weblogging and commentary by Chip Rosenthal

Ho Ho Ho! Happy Holidailies!

Submitted by chip on Sun, 19-Nov-2006 - 2:25 pm
in
Holidailies 2006

It's Holidailies time again. Holidailies is a community writing project for online journalers and other web writers. Participants aim for writing an article a day through the entire month of December.

The project, now in its seventh year, was founded by my wife. I've been assisting for the past four. I developed the portal that allows people to register and post their daily entries.

This year I got lazy and just reused last year's code without much change. That explains why this year, for the first time since I've been involved, we're actually starting the project on December 1 instead of partway through the month.

Last year I signed up as a participant. I finished the month with 23 entries posted.

This year, I probably won't. At this time last year I had wrapped up one contract and didn't expect to begin looking for a new one until after the new year. So a daily writing project seemed like an interesting project to try. This year, I fear I can't realistically commit to that.

But just because I'm being a total wimp doesn't mean that you have to. If you want to participate in Holidailies, you can. It's totally free. You just need to sign up. Just be warned that every year past we've had to cut off registrations early, so as not to overload our readers panel. I have no reason to expect this year will be any different.

If you do sign up, also consider becoming a sponsor. It's a great way to publicize your personal or small business site. Or, if you are associated with a non-profit group or organization, and would like some free public service advertising, drop me a line. We have a small number of "comp" slots set aside for non-profits that might be of interest to Holidailies participants.

So Long to the AMD PIC

Submitted by chip on Wed, 15-Nov-2006 - 5:29 pm
in
The AMD Personal Internet Communicator (PIC)

I'm sorry to see that AMD has abandoned the PIC—the Personal Internet Communicator. It's an appliance computer: just add keyboard, display, and network and you have a nice Internet terminal. My first exposure to the PIC was a year ago, in the shelter for Hurricane Katrina evacuees. AMD generously donated dozens of the devices, which we used as Internet terminals. I was impressed at the ruggedness of the devices.

I was not, however, as impressed with the ruggedness of the Windows/CE operating system. It seemed like reboots were too frequent.

Which leads me to the reasons why the PIC may have failed.

The first problem is that the PIC was a closed platform. That made it hostile to open source development.The PIC had a locked down BIOS, which prevented alternate operating systems, such as Linux, from being used. It was married to Windows/CE (abbreviated "Win/CE", pronounced "wince"). Accordingly, there was never much interest in developing interesting applications for the device.

The second problem was AMD's refusal to market within the United States. They limited sales to overseas markets, probably for fear of cannibalizing PC sales. There was some talk late last year about finally trying to enter the US market through Radio Shak. Still, it's hard to understand how the PIC could be considered competitive when it's being sold at about the same price as a low-end E-Machines PC.

Either of these alone would put a damper on the product. In combination, however, they ensured that no robust community would form around the device. Compare this to the Linksys WRT-54GL router, which has become a platform for all sorts of exciting community development. So much, in fact, that when Linksys designed a cost-reduced version of the router, they still maintained production of the community hackable version.

The PIC is a really cute device, and I could have imagined all sorts of cool things people might have done with them, if they had only been given a chance.

The final problem, and perhaps really the most fatal one, is the price/performance of the device didn't measure up. The unit cost of $250 is hard to justify for a low-low-low end headless computer. It seems to me that you'd need get it down to half that, before there was significant uptake. Compare this, for instance, to the OLPC project, which is shooting for $100 price per laptop (in quantity).

In the end, it was an awfully cute device, but there were a number of problems that kept it from living up to its potential.

(There is a Slashdot thread on this topic.)

web-chpass Release

Submitted by chip on Mon, 13-Nov-2006 - 9:05 pm
in

I just released a small update to the web-chpass program. This is a small, secure, robust utility that allows users to change their (Unix/Linux) login password through a web form.

No new features. Just a couple of small tweaks to the nipasswd program. Grab it if you want it.

Austin Technology Matters time change

Submitted by chip on Thu, 02-Nov-2006 - 6:31 pm
in

A quick update to my previous post about my new access television show Austin Technology Matters. I just checked the posted programming schedule and the time has been bumped half an hour later. The schedule now says 9:00pm tonight (Nov. 2) on cable channel 10. Sorry for the confusion.

The Corner Cheesesteak Store

Submitted by chip on Wed, 01-Nov-2006 - 11:26 pm
in
Chip and Jette at the Texadelphia

We've got cheesesteaks in our neighborhood. Yay! Texadelphia just opened their 9th local store, and it's a short walk from my house.

The location seems nice. There is a front patio, which may be nice for having a beer and a sandwich. The only problem I had is that the acoustics are a bit hot (so the place was a bit noisy to begin with) and unbalanced (so that the radio seems a lot louder and boomy at the back corner booth than it does at the counter).

First, let's get this out of the way: I'm not a big fan of their cheesesteaks. A few years back I had a gig with a Philly area company that required frequent travel back to the home office. I got to know cheesesteaks very well, and the Texadelphia version is a poor substitute.

Now, the chicken cheesesteak, on the other hand, does not have to suffer comparison to such an iconic monument as the Philly cheesesteak. On their own, the chicken cheesesteak sandwiches aren't bad at all. I recommend the mustard sauce.

I have an embarrassing confession to make: the Texadelphia hot sauce is one of my guilty pleasures. I know all you capsaicin craving salsa gourmands are looking down your nose at me. Fine, you can prowl the aisles of Central Market for your fancy, upscale salsa. I'll take the spicy-sweet taste of the Texadelphia hot sauce.

And here is a fact you may not know: Texadelphia makes a damn good burger. I discovered this only recently, and credit my wife for inducing me to try one. I took one bite and the Texadelphia hamburger rocketed right onto my top three Austin burgers list. Once again, the mustard sauce makes an awful nice dressing for the burger.

Austin Technology Matters premieres Thursday

Submitted by chip on Tue, 31-Oct-2006 - 11:54 pm
in

I first mentioned the Austin Technology Matters television show early this month. And now, it's really, really happening. This Thursday (Nov. 2) at 8:30pm, tune into cable channel 10 to catch the premiere episode. For this first program, we'll be visiting a Dorkbot gathering. More information here.

Besides the web site, there is also a Myspace page. If you are a Myspace user, please add me as a friend. Because there is nothing quite so pathetic as a Myspace page with just six friends.

Ubuntu Edgy Eft: Love the Release, Hate the Upgrade

Submitted by chip on Sat, 28-Oct-2006 - 12:08 am
in

I upgraded chinacat to Ubuntu Linux Edgy Eft (version 6.10) tonight.

The upgrade did not go smoothly.I had to rerun apt-get and aptitude many times to get it to run to completion. It failed to upgrade the "restricted modules" package once again, so I lost my Nvidia graphics. Plus it downgraded me from the AMD K7 kernel to the generic i386 kernel.

The good news is that it didn't trounce any files along the way, so I didn't have to drop into system recovery mode. I just kept beating on package files until the install completed.

The best news is that the Palm sync breakage that was introduced in 6.06 appears to be fixed. I was having to boot another system on the old Hoary Hedgehog (version 5.10) release and mount my home directory across the network to sync my Samsung i500 PDA phone. I'm so delighted by this fix that any ill thoughts I had about the upgrade are mostly mitigated.

At the imPACT Awards

Submitted by chip on Sat, 21-Oct-2006 - 12:55 pm
in
imPACT awards logo

I'm down at the PACT studios, helping set up for the first annual imPACT Awards. The awards happen tonight. They celebrate the best of public access television in Austin.

There will be a live show broadcast from the studio grounds on Northwestern Avenue, adjacent to the Boggy Creek Greenbelt. There will be magic, music, and food outside starting at 4:30pm today. The show will starts at 5:30pm and will be carried on all three access channels (cable chennels 10, 11, and 16). Keith Kelly of Esther's Follies will be the master of ceremonies. So it should be a lot of fun. And it's free. And it's a great way to celebrate make-your-own community television.

Tech Show Web Site is Active

Submitted by chip on Thu, 12-Oct-2006 - 10:59 am
in

I recently posted about the community technology television show I am producing. Editing is complete, and I'm just fixing up the show's technicals. I expect the air date of the first show will be the first week of November, give or take.

The first official announcement of the show should happen this evening, at the Dorkbot event. That seems like a good idea because that crowd should be into a local technology show. Not to mention that the first show is all about Dorkbot.

So, in preparation of all this, I've got a web site and a MySpace page setup. If you are interested in the show, I recommend heading over to the web site and subscribing to the news and announcements RSS feed. Here is the info:

Stay tuned for announcement of the first show date.

Oct 15 update: The air date of the premiere is Thursday, November 2 at 9:0pm on cable channel 10. Details here.

Ubuntu Upgrade Trounces Nvidia Video

Submitted by chip on Tue, 03-Oct-2006 - 11:00 pm
in

After my last Ubuntu Linux (Dapper Drake 6.06) kernel upgrade, the Nvidia graphic display stopped working. When the system booted I wouldn't get a graphic login. If I went to a text screen and tried to start graphics manually (startx command) it would fail with an error:

Module nvidia not found

Here are the details from the /var/log/Xorg.0.log file:

(II) Setting vga for screen 0.
(**) NVIDIA(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32
(==) NVIDIA(0): RGB weight 888
(==) NVIDIA(0): Default visual is TrueColor
(==) NVIDIA(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
(**) NVIDIA(0): Enabling RENDER acceleration
(EE) NVIDIA(0): Failed to load the NVIDIA kernel module!
(EE) NVIDIA(0):  *** Aborting ***
(II) UnloadModule: "nvidia"
(II) UnloadModule: "ramdac"
(II) UnloadModule: "fb"
(EE) Screen(s) found, but none have a usable configuration.

Well, that was bizarre. The error says that the nvidia driver module isn't there. But it was there! Or at least, it was there and worked fine until I applied the kernel upgrade.

I didn't have time to debug the problem at the time, so I used a workaround. I ran dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg and switched from the (proprietary) accelerated nvidia driver to the dumb vesa frame buffer.

Tonight I finally got around to debugging the problem. Turns out the error message was right. The nvidia driver wasn't there. Or, more correctly, the right version of the driver wasn't there.

The problem is that when the kernel update was applied, the update process failred to retrieve the corresponding version of the proprietary drivers package (linux-restricted-modules). These two have to match. I was running kernel version 2.6.15-27 but my video driver was for version 2.6.15-26.

Here is the relevant output from dpkg -l that illustrates the problem:

ii  linux-image-2.6.15-26-k7              2.6.15-26.47
ii  linux-image-2.6.15-27-k7              2.6.15-27.48
ii  linux-image-k7                        2.6.15.25
ii  linux-restricted-modules-2.6.15-26-k7 2.6.15.11-4
ii  linux-restricted-modules-common       2.6.15.11-4

I fixed the problem by running:

aptitude install linux-restricted-modules-2.6.15-27-k7

This changed the installed packages to:

ii  linux-image-2.6.15-26-k7              2.6.15-26.47
ii  linux-image-2.6.15-27-k7              2.6.15-27.48
ii  linux-image-k7                        2.6.15.25
ii  linux-restricted-modules-2.6.15-26-k7 2.6.15.11-4
ii  linux-restricted-modules-2.6.15-27-k7 2.6.15.11-5
ii  linux-restricted-modules-common       2.6.15.11-5

With the updated video drivers installed, everything worked fine.

I don't understand why Ubuntu failed to pull down the video drivers when it upgraded the kernel. Fortunately, this manual fix solved the problem. Thought I'd blog it in case somebody runs into this difficulty.

I just hope that somebody doesn't turn out to be me at the next kernel update.