When studying Anthropology in higher education, you learn in your first class the necessity of “participant observation“. This is defined as getting involved with the group you wish to study. In other words, rather than sitting on the sidelines, just watching the group, if you really want to learn what the culture is about, what they do day-to-day, what their emotions are how they speak, etc, you need to roll up your sleeves, and get your hands dirty. You need to participate in the culture you’re studying if you want to get a true, grounded study of the culture. You clean when they clean. You dance when they dance. You cry when they cry. So, that is what I have done with Ramadan. I have attended mosque more than once. I have gone out of my way to associate with Muslims. I have read the Qur’an. I have familiarized myself with the language and customs during Ramadan. While it would be much more effective if I was in a nation predominantly Islam, I’m doing the best I can here.

Now, I ask: is participant observation “extreme”?

On two different occasions this week, I was told that what I was doing was considered “extreme”. One later apologized, recognizing that what I’m doing is just trying to increase the religious tolerance of the American public, and that this person could learn a thing or two from my example. However, the other person did not apologize, and continues to spread the view that engaging in a religious activity other than your own is “extreme”.

On both cases, a discussion ensued about the philosophies and politics of participating in activities in a religion other than your own. The first, who later apologized, ended quickly when I mentioned anthropology and “participatory observation”. The second discussion brought up a fundamental belief in my church, then questioned if I was breaking that belief.

You see, as Mormons, we have temples all over the world. However, only people who have led good, clean, repentant lives, being called “worthy”, can enter the temple. There is an interview with your local church authorities that determines your worthiness. In that interview, a question is asked if you affiliate with or belong to a group that teaches opposing views of the LDS Church. If you do, then you are not worthy to enter the temple. So, it was suggested that by participating in Ramadan, I’m affiliating with a religion that goes directly against the teachings of the LDS Church. Now, of course I don’t agree. After reading the Qur’an three times, and on my fourth time currently; after studying the people and their beliefs and actions, I am confident that I am participating with a religion that has many, many similar teachings as my religion.

Anyway, I won’t go into any more detail about the discussion than that. However, I do want to know that if participating in a religion other than your own is considered “extreme”. What do you think? I don’t see what’s extreme about fasting for a full month. I don’t see what is extreme about reading a holy book. I don’t see what is extreme about making friends. So, I pose the question to you. Discuss it in the comments if you wish.

Here’s how the week went for me:

• 15 Ramadan- School is proving to be somewhat of a challenge while fasting. Not due to lack of energy or starvation, but because I can see everyone around campus enjoying their soda pop, pizza, hamburger, fries, grilled chicken, etc. And with it being the first week of school, there are booths setup everywhere handing out free donuts, candy, drinks, etc. Not only the sights, but the smells. Oh, the smells. It’s really, really hard to resist temptation, and get a bite to eat. But, so far, I’ve remained strong.
• 16 Ramadan- I met someone on the public transit today who noticed me reading the Qur’an. He asked if I was Muslim, as he didn’t know any Caucasian Muslims. I told him I wasn’t, then proceeded to explain to him what I was doing and why. It was a good conversation, and he had a great deal of respect for me doing it. When it came time to break the fast at sunset, I had my standard peanut butter and jelly sandwich with chips and drink.
• 17 Ramadan- I was to meet up with a study group for math at school, but no one showed. I got to the school around 08:00, and stayed until about 18:00. I noticed that as the day got later, I was struggling keeping my focus of solving some math problems. I recognized that this might be a problem for getting good grades on my homework. Thankfully, I really will only have a problem with this on Saturdays, and there is only one Saturday left during Ramadan.
• 18 Ramadan- Went to a family function that my grandparents call “The 5th Sunday Ice Cream Social”. Aunts, uncles, cousins, kids, grandkids, etc all show up. My grandfather makes the ice cream, and everyone is encouraged to bring a treat of some kind. So, there are cookies, ice cream, brownies, and other treats. It was hard to not have any, and it sparked some conversations with my cousins and aunts and uncles. My grandmother made me pigs-in-a-blanket, with mixed vegetables and tomatoes with whole milk for breaking my fast at sunset. After which, I quickly had as much ice cream and cookies as I could handle, and even brought many home.
• 19 Ramadan- I was caught today chewing gum by a fellow Muslim student in one of my math classes. She informed my that chewing gum was breaking the fast. I quickly spit it out, now knowing about that. I told her that I was concerned about my bad smelling breath, but she reassured me that because I’m fasting and resisting temptation to break my fast, my breath smells sweet to God. I felt bad, as I’m a big gum chewer, and have been chewing gum probably every day.
• 20 Ramadan- About a week ago, a good wind came through and blew over part of my fence, and destroyed some of my retaining wall. So, I had a contractor come over and look at it and give me a bid. He asked if I wanted some sunflower seeds, and I declined. He teased me that they weren’t poisoned, so I explained to him why I declined, due to my fasting. Then a long conversation ensued about having religious tolerance. He too held a great deal of respect for me for what I was doing. Two positive experiences this week advocating religious tolerance for Islam.
• 21 Ramadan- Nothing fascinating today. Went to school, went to work. I was offered pretzels by a school-mate, but when I declined, he remembered why I declined (I had already discussed with him about Ramadan). He was impressed that I’ve made it this far. I am too. I never thought I would make it three weeks of straight fasting. Only one week left to go, and I’ll be planning of having a big Eid ul-Fitr with my family. We’re planning a pot-luck, inviting brothers, sisters, parents, step-parents and in-laws. It should be a lot of fun to celebrate ending the month. I also found out that the University of Utah will be holding Iftar on Friday at campus. I plan on attending.

First, I like the command line. I like minimalist function and design. It’s always pulled me in. So, this solution is a command line solution. With that said, the command line doesn’t work well for viewing images, does it? This can be problematic for RSS feeds. I understand this. However, since using Newsbeuter for the time I have, I’ve found that I read a lot of blogs that are 100% images, and when push comes to shove, it’s adding a lot of noise to my RSS signal. As a result, I’ve removed a great deal of those feeds, and haven’t missed them. Again, going back to minimalism, I read fewer feeds now, and the signal is much, much higher. However, the link to the RSS feed is in the post itself, so you can follow the link from Newsbeuter to the browser of your choice if you wish. This will be the minority of the time for myself.

Second, this solution is not only using Newsbeuter, but also Mutt. Really, any mail client will work, but I like Mutt, so I’ll be using it in the solution here. Further, we’ll be tying Reader and Buzz together to make a few things work. But, everyone hates Buzz, right? Well, I don’t. I love the tight integration it has with Gmail and with Reader. Yeah, the design is lacking, that’s for sure. And some of the keystrokes are completely bass-ackwards compared to reader, and can cause problems with Gmail. However, because of the integration, and the reply-by-mail feature, which we’ll take advantage of here, you’ll find you won’t miss your Google Reader much (unless you absolutely have to view images in your feeds).

With that said, let’s begin. First, you need to install Newsbeuter 2.2 or greater and an mail client (Mutt, as already mentioned, will be used here). After installing Newsbeuter, you need to configure it to sync with your Google Reader account. Here’s what I set in my ~/.newsbeuter/config:

# setup google reader sync support
urls-source "googlereader"
googlereader-login "username@gmail.com"
googlereader-password "my-password"
googlereader-flag-share "S"
googlereader-flag-star "s"

Make sure you read the documentation about the Google Reader support. Now, fire up Newsbeuter. After authenticating, you will notice that it has populated your feeds, and you can start pulling down the updates to unread items. Here’s a screenshot of my Newsbeuter “home”:

You now have access to your starred items, your shared items, popular items and people that you follow (what others are sharing), but not the comments. That’s okay, we’ll cover how to get access to that in a second. However, if you have access to your starred items and shared items, how do you share or star an item in Newsbeuter? This is done through flags. Newsbeuter has a flagging system that allows a custom categorization of feeds by the user. The flag must be a letter, ether uppercase or lowercase, A-Z and a-z. You set the flag by pressing “Ctrl-e”, then entering the flag you wish to set. Now, you’ll notice that in my config, I have two options that are for flags: “googlereader-flag-share” and “googlereader-flag-star”. If I press “S” for my flag, then it will share the item. If I press “s” for my flag, then it will star the item. Test it, then log into the Google Reader interface to see it work.

Now, when I would share items, they usually were shared with a comment to encourage discussion with those who are following me (or anyone who can read the shared item). However, in Newsbeuter, there is no way to comment on a flagged item directly. Further, when you read items that your friends share, and they have comments with them, how do you add your own commentary? Well, I have a solution, but it doesn’t involve Newsbeuter. Rather, it requires that you use Buzz and an email client.

With Buzz, you can add your Google Reader shared items as a connected page. This means that whenever you share an item on Reader, it will show up as a new item in Buzz. Further, Buzz will send you an email of all the items you’ve posted to your wall, as well as your items that have been commented on. When you receive the email, the body of the message might be something like this (text copied and pasted from Mutt):

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:59:49 -0700 (PDT)
From: Aaron Toponce <z12dhj4psprvstctz23vcxg5wleozbfi104@gmail.com>
To: Aaron Toponce <aaron.toponce@gmail.com>
Subject: Buzz from Aaron Toponce

[-- Autoview using /usr/bin/elinks -force-html -dump ''/tmp/mutt.html'' --]
   [1]Aaron Toponce – Google Reader   Aug 31, 2010
   [2]Man Already Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Muslims - [3]Aaron
   Toponce's Friends' Facebook Links
   [4]Man Already Knows Everything He Needs To Know About Muslims
   Source: [5]www.theonion.com
   [6][IMG]
   SALINA, KS—Local man Scott Gentries told reporters Wednesday that his
   deliberately limited grasp of Islamic history and culture was still more
   than sufficient to shape his views of the entire Muslim world.
       I seem to recall that in earlier times it was only the court jester
   who could get away with speaking unwelcome truth to power. Perhaps that is
   why comedy often forces us to see things about ourselves we don't want to
   see.
   –––––
   Reply to this email to add a comment to this post.
   Link to this post:

http://www.google.com/buzz/115784859563110525602/BaqgGreVqdT/Man-Already-Knows-Everything-He-Needs-To-Know

References

   Visible links
   1. http://www.google.com/profiles/aaron.toponce
   2. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1068226280&v=wall&story_fbid=124010764315178
   3. http://www.facebook.com/posted.php
   4. http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-already-knows-everything-he-needs-to-know-abou,17990/
   5. http://www.theonion.com/
   6. http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-already-knows-everything-he-needs-to-know-abou,17990/

Notice the “From” address. It’s a long unique string that gives you access to comment on the post directly. As mentioned in the email, all you have to do is reply to the email, adding your commentary, and it will be posted as a comment on the shared item. You’re actually commenting on a Buzz post, not a Reader post, however, because you tied Reader and Buzz together, they become one and the same. Also, Buzz is smart enough to strip signatures and attachments from the reply, so your email signature and S/MIME PGP attachment will also be stripped. Just make sure you trim your email appropriately, so you’re not adding anything irrelevant to your comment (trim everything out of your reply).

Go back to Reader, pull up the shared item, and notice your comment on the post. Of course, you can comment on others shared items by sharing it first (the “S” flag for me), then replying to the mail sent from Buzz. When Buzz gives the ability to be notified of everything that your friends are posting, then you shouldn’t have to share it also. However, I usually reshare what others have shared, so this isn’t a show-stopper for me, even if it is less than perfect.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention Newsbeuter’s tagging feature. In Google Reader, I have separated my feeds into folders. However, when I sync with Reader, it seems all my feeds are in one massive “river of news”. I don’t like this, and wish the folders were preserved. Well, with Newsbeuter, it is through tags. When in the main window, press “t” and it will take you to your “tags”, or folders as Reader would call it. At which point, you can read only what specific topic you’re interested in. However, I do know that Google Reader supports tagging beyond their folders. I don’t know of a way to apply Reader tags inside Newsbeuter.

This week was the week that school started for fall semester at my local university. I’m a bit nervous being able to keep my energy high all day long after going from class to class at school, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out the last few weeks. Also, I’ve been very diligent on keeping up my pace to get through the Qur’an by 27 Ramadan. Some days are light reading, other days are heavier reading, but I’m still ahead of schedule, so that’s good should I have a day or two that I forget or can’t get to it.

By the end of this week, I’m half way through. I’ve now fasted more days consecutively in two weeks than I do in an entire year with my religion. My motivation is strong, and I’m sure I can finish. Also, my cold that I had the previous week is subsiding, so I have more strength and less pain going throughout the day.

Lastly, I’ve been shocked by the anti-Islam and anti-Muslim comments that I’ve received from people close to me or who I have a great deal of respect for, even if our political or philosophical views don’t align very well. I’ve heard comments calling Islam a religion of hate and a religion of terror. I’ve heard comments that Muhammad was a false prophet, and will likely spend his afterlife in Hell. I’ve heard comments that being around Muslims makes them feel uncomfortable for their own safety, because they could be terrorist moles. I’ve heard that the Qur’an endorses murder and terrorism. I’ve heard that Islam is totalitarian, communist, and the perfect religion to build an army of Satan. I’ve heard all sorts of despicable things about these people, and it makes me sick.

Of course, many of these comments are directed to the fact that an Islamic community center will be built 2 blocks away form Ground Zero, in New York City, New York. So, I guess my timing to participate in Ramadan, and raise awareness for their religion, even though I’m Christian myself, couldn’t have been better timed. However, the prejudiced and racist comments that I’ve endured, and the videos I’ve seen, have brought to my attention the naive, ignorant, and belligerent hate that people can have, of which I have never before seen. I grieve for the American people and their “holier than thou” ideals.

Anyway, here’s how my week went physically.

• 8 Ramadan- The cold is progressing, but really, nothing to report here. I just have sinus congestion, headaches and a sore throat. Even though I shouldn’t be fasting while I’m sick, this cold isn’t bothering me enough to justify ending the fast. So, I’m sticking with it. At least until school starts back up again on 12 Ramadan.
• 9 Ramadan- I went to an amusement park with my family today. We got there around 11:30 in the morning, and stayed until 11:00 at night. Temperature was around one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. So, by around 2:00 pm, I was physically exhausted and completely dehydrated. My energy was gone, I was weak and started to get dizzy. I took my health more seriously than the fast, and broke the fast for a couple quarts of water. After rehydrating, I was able to keep my energy level up the remainder of the day until sunset, and eat. The toughest part, was around 6:00 pm, there was a dinner for families supporting adoption (our daughter is adopted). They had sandwhiches, chips, drinks, and cookies. Even though I had broken the fast and had water, I was only doing it for my health, and not for breaking the fast, so I still felt like I was fasting. So, I refrained from eating what looked like a great dinner. At sunset, I finally broke the fast for ending the day, and had a burger, fries and drink.
• 10 Ramadan- Went to another family reunion, and of course, there was a smorgos board of food- three picnic tables worth. Sloppy Joes, chips, Jello salad, pasta salad, brownies, cookies, juice, root beer, and on, and on, and on. And, of course, I can’t eat any of it. I told my wife that this is three very tempting and solid meals that I resisted eating during the month of Ramadan. I could have eaten very well the past couple of weeks, but I resisted.
• 11 Ramadan- Today felt like a standard “Fast Sunday” that we have once per month in our religion, so it didn’t really feel any different. Wasn’t a hard day, wasn’t really an easy day either. However, I am 1/2 way through reading the Qur’an. I’m trying to keep the pace to finish by 27 Ramadan. I think I’m on target.
• 12 Ramadan- First day of school at my local university, and I forgot to wear my topi. I really want to raise awareness for Islam, so I’m a bit upset that I didn’t put it on before leaving out the door. Also, I was a bit nervous at first that I would run out of energy quickly going from class to class, and I wouldn’t have the energy to carry me throughout the day, but I did just fine. I went to a local cafe for dinner.
• 13 Ramadan- I only had an apple, banana and a glass of milk for the meal at sunrise. Needless to say, I was starving very early in the day, and I didn’t have much energy to carry me throughout the day. I quickly learned that was not a wise choice. My wife made parmigiana chicken for dinner with onions and carrots. It was very good..
• 14 Ramadan- This time, I corrected my opening meal with some Grape Nuts (grains, oats, cracked wheat, high in fiber, etc) and yogurt, along with milk and orange juice. I had a much better time getting through the day. I had plenty of energy and didn’t really get hungry until about 8 hours later. Also, I went to the grocery store, and bought some wheat bread, peanut butter (crunchy, of course), strawberry jam and vitamin water for my late dinners at work before heading home. That worked well. Lastly, my cold is subsiding. Finally.

So, the first week of Ramadan has been a good one for me. There have been times when I have struggled with fasting, and there have been times when it wasn’t such a big deal. Ramadan started August 12th for North America. The following Saturday, I decided to attend the Khadeeja Islamic Center in West Valley and listen to Tarawih. It was an awesome event to participate in, even if I don’t understand Arabic, and didn’t understand some of the motions that they were doing at the time. It started at 22:30 and went until roughly 00:15. Here’s more of a detailed rundown of what I have experienced during my first week:

• 1 Ramadan- I prepared well by eating a good breakfast at sunrise. It was full of fruit and dairy high in proteins and fats. Had a little carbohydrates as well. Didn’t really start getting hungry until about 8 hours later, which I thought was pretty good. Because I’m used to fasting for 24 hours on the first Sunday of every month, this wasn’t a big deal. I was a bit nervous about getting the shakes, as I usually get them when I fast. At sunset, I had a balanced meal with grains, vegetables and more fruit.
• 2 Ramadan- I prepared just as well this morning, by eating a balanced breakfast, full of proteins and fats to help carry me through the day. However, I got hungry a bit earlier than the day before. But, the hunger pains subsided early, and I was fine, although without energy, for the rest of the day. Thanks to my wife, I again had a good mean at sunset that balanced what I didn’t eat that morning.
• 3 Ramadan- This has been the hardest day for me. First, I didn’t get a full night’s rest. I only slept about 4 hours, as I didn’t retire early the night before. Then, I didn’t eat a very balanced breakfast, and as a result, got hungry much earlier than the previous two days. As a result, I was very tempted to break my fast, and eat early. I held on, although I was completely drained of energy by the end of the day. Part of the problem was going to a family reunion for my wife’s side of the family, where several tables of food was laid out. I resisted and held true to fast. By sunset, I was more eager to have a good meal than previous days. I never did get the shakes
• 4 Ramadan- I must have been close to someone with a cold, because I woke up with a sore throat, a runny nose, and a pounding headache. I debated taking cold medicine. Would that break the fast? I held on as long as I could, but I gave in and took two DayQuil pills to relieve the pressure, pains and general crap that you deal with when having the common cold. I also visited my mother, but forgot to take a meal with me for sunset. So I ate chocolate cake and cookies to tide me over until I could get home and have roast, potatoes and carrots.
• 5 Ramadan- I debating quitting this day. I thought to myself that I’ve gone further than many people would in their entire lives. The temptation from Satan to break the fast and eat was very strong. Further, I can tell that by me fasting, I’m putting my family at a bit of odds, as they eat without me, and I without them. Fortunately, my wife told me she supports me in my decision to keep going, and helped me to be strong. I remade my committment to hold true to the fast for the entire month, and set temptation aside.
• 6 Ramadan- This day was probably the easiest during the week. I never really got hungry, at least not where I really noticed it. Nothing eventful happened today. Although, I did have to mow the lawn and trim the weeds before sunset. I did notice that I didn’t have a lot of energy, so it was a bit difficult to keep the physical labor going, knowing that it had to be done.
• 7 Ramadan- Another hard day physically for me fasting. I definitely have a cold, so I make sure to take medicine in the morning before starting the fast. Then when breaking the fast I night, I take more cold medicine. Hopefully, I can kick it. However, despite not being in top shape, I met a lady from Egypt who was Muslim. She’s attending the University of Utah this fall to study comparative literature. She just arrived last Saturday, and was getting her final paperwork ready for the fall semester. It was good to talk with her. I’ve read more than 1/3 of the Qur’an- well ahead of schedule to finish by 27 Ramadan. So far this week, I haven’t gotten the shakes.

I’ve been actively involved with the service since July 2, 2008, which means I’ve been on the service now for three years. In my opinion, it has trumped Twitter by leaps and bounds in terms of features. But, with these features has come uncharted territory, much of which is getting heavily abused. After being involved with the service as much as I have, I’d like to address some points that I would think should be common etiquette when using Identi.ca. All of these items have to do with group tags, or the ability to send messages to a group that you belong to using the exclamation point “!”.

DON’TS

1. Don’t use group tags on “retweets/redents”. When “retweeting/redenting”, strip any and all group tags from the post, and replace them with the hashtag “#”. Nothing is more annoying than seeing the same post posted to the group six, seven or eight times. Once is enough. Further, navigating to http://identi.ca/tag/foo will show all posts about “foo”, both hashtags and group tags.
2. Don’t post off-topic with group tags. When sending a message to a group, make sure it meets the groups rules for staying on topic. Don’t abuse the tag, because you think it’s semi-related to the topic at hand. In other words, don’t send messages to the Linux group and the Arch Linux group, when the post is entirely about Arch Linux. Chances are high most people in the Arch Linux group are in the Linux group as well.
3. Don’t abuse the number of group tags. We all know that GNU and Linux are married at the hip, but that doesn’t mean every post to the Linux group needs to go to the GNU group as well. When you start adding three, four and five group tags to your post, you’re just spamming as many groups as you can, to reach the widest audience, when the fact remains that many people are likely already in most of the groups your spamming. Try to keep your group tags to one or two. Any more than that is just spam, it’s annoying and I for one will block you, especially if you’re a repeat offender.
4. Don’t use the group tag if the person you’re in conversation with is not using it. Use the hashtag “#” instead. The problem with only one party using the group tag, is half of the conversation is available to the group, and if the conversation is highly active, it’s considered spam. If a reply thread has been carrying on during a discussion, people can navigate to the web interface, click the “in context” link and read the relevant discussion. There is no need to keep sending your replies to the group. However, if everyone in the discussion is using the group tag, then feel free to keep it going.
5. Don’t use the group tag and the hashtag for the same word in a single post. You only need to use the tag once. Using the group tag again or using a hashtag on the some word as the group tag doesn’t provide any extra functionality. When people navigate their browsers to http://identi.ca/tag/foo, or click on the hashtag “#foo”, they will see “foo” group tags and hashtags. So, having it once in your post will reveal it to that query. Any additional tagging on the same word in the same post is just silly.

DOS

1. Do use group tags to post relevant questions, stories, links or HOWTOS from the Internet. It’s always great to see a good article that I didn’t have in my RSS feeds that someone posts, and is usually worth of a “retweet/redent”.
2. Do use group tags interweaved with your post. In other words, while appending group tags at the end of your post is fine, using them as words in your post is even better. Same can be said for hashtags. Make them work with you in the post, rather than anchors at the end.
3. Do use the group tag sparingly. While you might be a member of the “listening” group, and your posts are strictly on topic, sending listening updates every 5 minutes might start to piss people off, and you could get blocked, and/or removed from the group.
4. Do use the recycle unicode symbol for “retweets/redents”. Although nothing to do with group tags per se, lots of posts to group tags are reposted. Using “RT” or “RD” is sooooo 2006 Twitter. Using U+2672 ♲, U+267A ♺ and U+267B ♻ seem to be most common. Plus, it saves you a character in your 140 character limit.

I’m certainly no expert on microblogging, nor am I any authority on Identi.ca. However, I have noticed that when these unwritten rules are violated, it usually ends up in pissed off people and a less-than-pleasant experience.

So, when installing on a desktop or laptop, I’m slightly annoyed by the default package sets that are installed. I understand why they’re chosen, and I’m definitely not arguing with the decisions made, however, some of the packages just aren’t for me. So, on my wiki, I’ve been documenting what should be installed and removed on every Debian GNU/Linux installation I make. As soon as the install finishes, I’ll login to the system, pull up my wiki, and copy and paste the following commands as root (trying to keep the horizontal scrolling in your browser to a minimum):

# aptitude install abiword apt-file checkconfig chromium-browser clusterssh deborphan flashplugin-nonfree git-core \
gmrun gnumeric htop network-manager openbox openssh-server python-docutils rst2pdf screen tango-icon-theme \
vim vim-gnome xfce4 xfce4-icon-theme xfce4-terminal xscreensaver-data-extra zsh zsh-doc

# aptitude purge dasher gnome-accessibility gnome-accessibility-themes gnome-mag gnome-orca gok nano \
openoffice.org{,-base,-base-core,-calc,-common,-core,-draw,-emailmerge,-evolution,-filter-binfilter,-filter-mobiledev} \
openoffice.org{-gcj,-gnome,-gtk,-help-en-us,-impress,-java-common,-math,-officebean,-style-galaxy,-style-tango,-thesaurus-en-us,-writer} \
xserver-xorg-input-{all,synaptics,wacom} xserver-xorg-video-{all,apm,ark,ati,chips,cirrus,fbdev,i128,i740,intel,mach64,mga,neomagic} \
xserver-xorg-video-{noveau,nv,openchrome,r128,radeon,radeonhd,rendition,s3,s3virge,savage,siliconmotion,sis,sisusb,tdfx,trident,tseng,v4l,voodoo}

First, I will identify which xserver-xorg-video driver I’ll need for the hardware I’m installing to, and remove that from the purge, even though the VESA driver always works just fine for me, as I’m certainly no gamer, and it’s never let me down in my desire to power any video card at any resolution and frequency I’ve encountered. I’ll also leave the Synaptics driver in place when installing to a laptop.

Second, I realize that this isn’t for everybody. Most people won’t care about having OpenOffice.org or the GNOME accessibility packages installed. I don’t need them, they free up hard drive space for me, and when running updates, downloads are much faster. So, this works for me.

Lastly, I have a hard time deciding between using GNOME and Openbox for my default desktop. I like the GDM for logging in, and I like the power management features that GNOME brings to the table. However, I like the minimalist approach to Openbox, and its configuration capabilities. I login to both from time-to-time, just in case you noticed that I’m installing Openbox, but also removing GNOME packages that would only come from a default GNOME install.

I’ve gotten tired of executing this on every install, and wondered if there was something more I could do. So, I mentioned my frustration on Identi.ca, not really looking for a reply, but one came through at any event (thread here). The reply was to use DPKG to get a list of the software that is installed when I’m finished with my install and purge, then use that list during the next install.

So, how to do this? Well, after you have your system installed the way you want, with all the packages installed and purged to suit your needs, run the following command:

$ dpkg --get-selections \* > packages.txt

You now have a text file with all the packages that are installed on your system. So, when doing a fresh Debian install at a later date, it’s trivial to get these packages installed, so I don’t have to do the install and purge copy/paste that I was doing before. After installing only the base, and nothing more, login to the system, copy the packages.txt file you created via SCP or some other method to the filesystem, and run the following commands (as root):

# apt-get update
# dpkg --set-selections < packages.txt
# apt-get -u dselect-upgrade

You now have your system installed with exactly the packages you want installed, and nothing more. Not only that, but the latest version as well. No need to update after you login (Windows, you could learn something here).

To me, this is beautiful. This is a simplistic way to clone a Debian system, without using utilities like Norton Ghost or CloneZilla, either though both have their place in administration. I just love the simplicity and elegance of this. To me, this makes administration fun. When I can solve simple problems with core system tools, I'm a happy admin.

Long live Debian.

Well, the story is a long one, loaded with details I won’t bother covering here. To keep it short, I served a mission for my church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I spent two years of my life there preaching the Good Word and spreading the Gospel to all that would hear it. It was there I met my wife actually. But, during this time, I developed a great love for those I was serving. You see, Toronto is one of the most multi-cultural cities in the world. I think at the time I was there, it was said to be the home of 80 different cultures, with hundreds of different spoken dialects. It wasn’t uncommon to talk to a Buddhist at one door, a nihilist at another, a Christian at the third and a Muslim at the fourth. As you spent your day among the people, you really were dipped deeply in many cultures.

Many LDS missionaries say that their mission was the best mission in the world, because they grew to love the people they were with so much, and had experiences that they wouldn’t trade for anything. Well, in Toronto, the world was in my mission, so I got to see everything.

Well, during these two years, one group of people that I developed a great deal of respect for were those belonging to Islam. I developed this respect, because of all the people that I met; of all the cultures that I got involved with, it was the culture of Islam that was the most friendly. Sure, there was your bad seed every once in a while, but overall, I was constantly shown respect and love to. I was invited more often into the homes of Muslims. I was invited to dinner or lunch more with Muslims. I was able to talk more openly with Muslims. All-in-all, it was the people of Islam that were very friendly. As a result, I learned so much about their culture and what made them tick. And the more I learned, the better I was able to build a foundation of trust with them. It was mutually beneficial for both of us.

So, you can imagine my heartbreak when I came back to Utah. Sure, there is culture here, but it’s nothing like Toronto. Further, I was amazed at how many people here were prejudiced against Muslims. It blew me away. Especially after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, in New York City, New York. All of the sudden, it was as if every Muslim in the country was to be feared. Members of the Sikh religion were being falsely categorized as Muslims, because of their turbans. It was rather infuriating. I felt like I needed to be a missionary for the Muslim people. I needed to let these prejudiced, racist pigs that Islam is a God-fearing culture. They pray five times per day. The attend holy services at a mosque. They even read their holy book, the Qur’an, which has much of the same stories as the Holy Bible. For the first time in my life, I was on the defense for another culture and religion other than my own.

On a side-note, every wedding anniversary, my wife and I would celebrate a new culture. We started with Italian, then did Celtic, then Chinese, Jewish, Mexican, Japanese and others. This past Saturday was our eleventh wedding anniversary, and when we were planning it ahead of time, I mentioned that I wanted to do an Islamic celebration. So, when the anniversary came, we read from the Qur’an, ate dates, visited a mosque, ate Lebanese food (the best we could do in Utah) and purchased a topi and a couple hijabs, and henna tattoos. It was a wonderful evening.

So, come August 11th, or 12th, depending on when the first crescent moon is sighted, the holy month of Ramadan starts. The month is a month of fasting and sacrifice. Participants abstain from food and drink, as well as personal pleasures such as gambling or sexual intercourse from sunrise to sunset every day for the entire month. Because the month is starting in only a couple of days, the fasting will be about 14 hours in duration each day. Also during this time, Muslims are encouraged to read the entire Qur’an before the month’s end, and attend recitations at the mosque every evening. The Khadeeja Islamic Center here in Salt Lake City will be doing the nightly recitations after the fifth prayer.

My participation for that month will be as follows:

• I’ll be attending at least one of the recitations, if not two.
• I’ll be wearing my topi every day, all day long.
• I’ll be reading the Qur’an, both in private and in public, in its entirety before the month ends.
• I’ll be fasting as they would fast from sunrise to sunset every day of the month

In addition to what’s listed above, I’ll also be incorporating some aspects of my religion into the daily routine. In the LDS Church, the first Sunday of each month is usually reserved for a fast. It is meant to start the night before, and end 24 hours later. For our monthly fast, we’re encourage to open our hearts to God, and ask for His blessings or thank Him for what He has given us. In other words, our fast should accompany prayer. So each day, I’ll start my fast with a prayer and end my fast with a prayer. Second, I’ll be reading my scriptures as much as I can as well. The LDS Holy Scriptures include the Holy Bible, The Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants. I won’t be able to get through all four books, so I’ll just be focusing on one. Not sure which at this moment.

Why am I doing this, if I’m a Christian? The biggest reason is to raise awareness of the culture that is Islam. There are a lot of misconceptions about Muslims and Islam in general, and I’m hoping to help people understand that Islam is not a religion of hate, but a religion of peace, love and integrity. These people are good people. The fear God, they follow the Prophets, they pray daily and frequently. They do good to others by helping in their community and they’re respectful of others. My wearing my topi in public, and reading the Qur’an in public, hopefully, people will ask me questions, and I can educate them. I certainly won’t be out preaching or knocking doors. I’ll be on the passive side of things, hoping people notice, and have the courage to ask me questions.

The other reason for doing this, is I have bad habits and sins that I would like to remove from my life. I’m hoping that by making such a large sacrifice for a month, I will grow closer to God, and He will grant me the ability to make my weaknesses strengths and forgive me of my sins. So, I have deep, personal reasons for doing it.

It will be difficult, especially seeing as though school is starting up in two weeks, and I’ll still have two more weeks after that to go. I plan on blogging updates about my experiences during Ramadan. Don’t worry, I won’t blog every day. Most likely, it will be a weekly summary of activities, conversations, studies, how I feel, and so on. So, likely there will only be four posts during the month.

Then, while working for Guru Labs, I was on the road with Christer, another guru, and he was using it rather intensively. After dinner one day, and heading back to the hotel, he called me over to his room to hack on some stuff for our classes. In the meanwhile, he was go, go, go on Twitter (back then, they rocked it hard with a Jabber bot. They’ve since ditched the bot, and as a result, my interest in using it).

Him: “Dude, you need to get on Twitter. It’s a lot like an IRC room. Just post something, and people following you will likely reply if it’s interesting enough.”
Me: “So, I just tell people I’m having a burger for dinner, or that I’m about to take a shower, and people are supposed to care?”
Him: “Would you post that in an IRC channel?”
Me: “I guess not.”
Him: “Here’s the thing: start following others that you would be interested in keeping up-to-date with, like those in an IRC channel. They’ll likely start following you in return, especially if they know you. Eventually, you’ll have enough people to start a conversation with. Then, post something, and see if replies come back in. You know, stuff like what you would read on Techdirt, why the latest random distro sucks, etc. You know, stuff you care about that others can relate with. The conversation will just follow.”

He was right. I started following people first that I already knew personally. Mostly, those in the Ubuntu community. Then I started finding others that I didn’t know too well, but knew that their nerd level was on par with mine. As I started following others, people started following me. Then, the test- posting something. I don’t recall what I posted, as I ended up deleting my account in favor of Identi.ca (which I re-opned later, but lost my nick, my posts, and those I followed), but I’m sure they were awkward.

Then it hit me. When I found cool posts online, I usually shared the URL with an IRC channel I was in. Instead, I started sharing that link on Twitter. Sure enough, it would usually garner a reply. Then, a conversation would ensue. Before long, I “got it”. Twitter was nothing more than a platform for casual, off-the-cuff conversation. It wasn’t about what I was eating for breakfast, as much as it was discussing current topics, trends, fads, and such that I and my followers were interested in. As Christer mentioned, it was just like IRC, except rather that starting a conversation with a very limited set of people, it was being broadcast to anyone who could see my public profile, and people could subscribe to that feed if they liked what they read. Further, it was nothing about what I was eating for breakfast. Instead, it was all about having conversations with people I wouldn’t normally converse with.

Of course, if you know your Twitter history, you know it finally found its fame when celebrities started using it. People wanted to get closer to celebs. Celebs want to get closer to their fans. Then TV stations, news, weather, and just about anything and everything hit the Twitter trend. And rarely, since I’ve been on it, do I see people broadcasting what they had for breakfast. I see hurricane updates, earthquake news, when and where my favorite music artists will be, discussions, arguments and flames over some certain technology and on and on. Twitter has been the biggest platform for discussing the World Cup. Follow your favorite sports team, player and stats. Check out http://hashtags.org, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. It’s really quite remarkable.

So, it never ceases to amaze me those who don’t understand the technology, or the Luddites fighting against it, keep saying “I don’t care what you had for breakfast”. Is it really hard to understand how to use a microblogging service? Let me guess. You probably don’t have a Facebook account either, right? Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying everyone should jump on the social bandwagon, but if you aren’t using the service, because you think it’s nothing but vain, self-proclamations and promotions, then it’s clear you don’t “get it”, just as I didn’t back in 2007.

There are a number of reasons why Twitter, Identi.ca, Facebook, and other microblogging platforms will be successful over and over:

• Keeping in touch with those you care about
• Getting caught up on the latest news
• Looking for a social outlet beyond your current lifestyle
• Using it when other methods of conversation would fail (maybe you’re a mute)

Sure, as with any service, there are those that abuse it, and people who have used a microblogging platform knows that there is some noise to come along with it. But, when you learn how to use the tool effectively, it’s rather trivial to filter out the noise, and get a high degree of signal.

I use it entirely for conversation and news. I am an IRC junkie, and hang out in far more channels than I would care to admit. I do it for the social conversations, as well as support and providing support. Identi.ca and Twitter are that for me. A place to converse when I want to converse. It’s a place for news, when I’m in the mood to keep up-to-date (along with RSS and email. No, I don’t watch TV). I’ve even used it to get deals when travelling and scheduling appointments with friends. Heck, I recently became a ham radio operator for similar reasons.

So, to each their own, but if your problem with Twitter is not caring what people have for breakfast, then it’s clear that you don’t know what you’re talking about and you haven’t used the service. But then again, unless I ask, I’m likely not interested in your opinion anyway. I definitely won’t try to “convert” you.

Recently, we had some virtual servers take a dive, because the disk array they were on took a dive, and with it, all the storage that these VMs were relying on for their OS and other needs. So, we’ve been building these machines back up from backup on a new NetApp SAN. Everything has been working well with Bare Metal Restore for Windows VMs, but we were struggling getting it to work with RHEL. So, I got the idea to boot up a Fedora 12 Live CD, install the NetBackup client in the live environment, and do a restore from there, then reboot into the newly built machine.

Works like a charm! So, I documented the steps necessary to make it work. Realize, that this was documented for my place of employment. Of course, I’ve completely changed the hostnames, IP addresses, and other details that would be specific to work. However, if you deploy this in your environment, then you’ll need to make the necessary architectural changes that fit your needs. Also, this should work with Fedora 13, the latest release at the time of this writing, but Fedora 12 works well for us, and because it’s used just for this purpose, we see no pressing need to use the latest. Also, Debian or Ubuntu, or some other GNU/Linux based operating system might work as well, but NetBackup doesn’t support these operating system necessarily, and it is expecting the filesystem layout that is common with Red Hat based operating systems. Regardless, Fedora 12 is being used as a tool here, not because of any loyalty or fanboyism.

So, here’s the tutorial:

Fedora can be used as a temporary live environment for NetBackup when doing restores to RHEL machines. Just boot from the Fedora ISO or CD, and make sure you have configured networking appropriately, and that you can get out to the Internet. After that, follow the instructions below. This does assume that you have a base, bare-bones, RHEL install that matches the partitioning or volume layout of the previous install that you’re restoring. This must be completed first, because at the end of the tutorial, you will be mounting these devices, and restoring only the files, to these mount points.

First, the liveuser can get root access without any password. However, for this tutorial, you will need to set a password for root, so go ahead and do that:

[liveuser@localhost ~]$ su -
[root@localhost ~]# passwd
Changing password for user root.
New password:
Retype new password:
passwd: all authentication tokens updated successfully.
[root@localhost ~]# 

At this point, we need to setup the hostname and networking correctly. We have set aside the ‘netbackup.example.com’ domain name for the Linux restore system in our DNS environment, and the IP address that has been set aside is ’10.19.84.254′. In the terminal as root, set the hostname:

[root@localhost ~]# hostname netbackup.example.com
[root@localhost ~]# export HOSTNAME="netbackup.example.com"

Now get networking configured with NetworkManager. In the status bar of the desktop, there is an icon that looks like two computers. Right click this, and click “Edit Connections…”. Click “Auto eth0”, click the “Edit…” button, click the “IPv4 Settings” tab, and set the parameters as necessary:

Method: Manual
Address: 10.19.84.254
Netmask: 255.255.255.0
Gateway: 10.19.1.254
DNS servers: 10.19.2.192, 10.19.3.192, 10.19.4.192
Search domains: example.com

Click “Apply…”, and enter the password for root, then close the “Network Connections” widget. The icon looking like two computers should have a red “X” next to it now. This means it’s not online. Left-click the icon, and click “Auto eth0” to get it back online. Back in your terminal, you should be able to verify that the networking has been set correctly:

[root@localhost ~]# ip a show eth0
2: eth0:  mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1a:4a:06:14:24 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 10.19.84.254/24 brd 10.5.31.255 scope global eth0
    inet6 fe80::21a:4aff:fe06:1424/64 scope link
        valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
[root@localhost ~]# ping -c 4 mediaserver.example.com
PING mediaserver.example.com (10.19.84.60) 56(84) bytes of data
64 bytes from mediaserver.example.com: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.942 ms
64 bytes from mediaserver.example.com: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.230 ms
64 bytes from mediaserver.example.com: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.193 ms
64 bytes from mediaserver.example.com: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.212 ms

--- mediaserver.example.com ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3002ms
rrt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.193/0.394/0.942/0.316 ms

In order for the NetBackup client to communicate with the media server (mediaserver.example.com – 10.19.84.60), we need to make a modification to our /etc/hosts file, and add it’s IP address and hostname:

[root@localhost ~]# echo "10.19.84.60      mediaserver.example.com mediaserver" >> /etc/hosts

With networking correctly set, we need to start up the SSH server:

[root@localhost ~]# service sshd start
Generating SSH1 RSA host key:                              [  OK  ]
Generating SSH2 RSA host key:                              [  OK  ]
Generating SSH2 DSA host key:                              [  OK  ]
Starting sshd:                                             [  OK  ]

Because this is a temporary live environment, we’re not interested in SELinux nor any firewall. So, let’s get those disabled first:

[root@localhost ~]# getenforce
Enforcing
[root@localhost ~]# setenforce 0
[root@localhost ~]# getenforce
Permissive
[root@localhost ~]# service iptables stop
iptables: Flushing firewall rules:                         [  OK  ]
iptables: Setting chains to policy ACCEPT: filter          [  OK  ]
iptables: Unloading modules                                [  OK  ]

At this point, you should verify that you can SSH to the Fedora live environment from another host. It should work. However, we still have more work to do. Before we can get the NetBackup client installed, we need to install a few packages. So, in your terminal, type the following:

[root@localhost ~]# yum install glibc-2.11-2.i686 libacl-2.2.47-5.fc12.i686 libstdc++-4.4.2-7.fc12.i686

This will download about 30MB of packages and metadata necessary for installation. Depending on your Internet connection, this might take a while. If you don’t want to wait, you could change the repo files in /etc/yum.repos.d/, and use a faster mirror. Or, you can wait. After the packages are installed, and everything configured, we should be able to install the NetBackup client. To do this, we need to SSH to mediaserver.example.com, and send the client over. You can do this from the terminal you’ve already been working in:

[root@localhost ~]# ssh mediaserver
The authenticity of host 'mediaserver (10.19.84.60)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 14:d3:50:f1:27:d5:14:ab:c2:ca:51:fa:7e:5a:98:4c.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added 'mediaserver,10.19.84.60' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
root@mediaserver's password:
[root@mediaserver ~]# 

Now transfer over the client. First, mediaserver.example.com will likely have the wrong SSH key for this box on file, as you might have done this more than once, and every time you boot into the Fedora 12 Live CD, and start up the SSH server, a different key will be generated. You will need to delete it:

[root@mediaserver ~]# cd /usr/openv/netbackup/client/Linux/RedHat2.6/
[root@mediaserver RedHat2.6]# ./sftp_to_client netbackup.example.com root
Connecting to 10.19.84.18...
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@    WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!     @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that the RSA host key has just been changed.
The fingerprint for the RSA key sent by the remote host is
89:db:1f:12:f9:8f:76:38:63:6e:54:75:7a:43:ed:9e.
Please contact your system administrator.
Add correct host key in /root/.ssh/known_hosts to get rid of this message.
Offending key in /root/.ssh/known_hosts:4
RSA host key for netbackup.example.com has changed and you have requested strict checking.
Host key verification failed.
Couldn't read packet: Connection reset by peer

sftp connection to netbackup.example.com failed.

Notice, that it says the offending key is on line 4 of /root/.ssh/known_hosts. So, I’ll delete line 4 from that file:

[root@mediaserver RedHat2.6]# sed -i 4d /root/.ssh/known_hosts

Now, try again:

[root@mediaserver RedHat2.6]# ./sftp_to_client netbackup.example.com root
Connecting to netbackup.example.com...
The authenticity of host 'netbackup.example.com (10.19.84.254)' can't be established.
RSA key fingerprint is 4d:74:e6:66:ed:d9:bc:dc:3a:71:41:51:18:58:da:e9.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? yes
Warning: Permanently added '10.19.84.254' (RSA) to the list of known hosts.
root@netbackup.example.com's password: 

sftp completed successfully.

The root user on netbackup.example.com must now execute the command
"sh /tmp/bp.22802/client_config [-L]".  The optional argument, "-L",
is used to avoid modification of the client's current bp.conf file.
[root@mediaserver RedHat2.6]# exit
[root@localhost ~]#

Now that we are back in the live environment, we can execute the command as given us from mediaserver.example.com. Of course, the name of the file transferred over might be different. First, let’s get xinetd running:

[root@localhost ~]# service xinetd start
Starting xinetd:                                           [  OK  ]
[root@localhost ~]# sh /tmp/bp.22802/client_config

It will spit out a bunch of files and directories that it’s installing for the client, and will reload the xinetd server. All that is left, is to start the NetBackup client, and we’re finished!

[root@localhost ~]# service nbclient start
NetBackup SAN Client Fibre Transport daemon started.

Verify that the default NetBackup ports 13722, 13724, 13782 and 13783 are bound to the system:

[root@localhost ~]# lsof -Pan -i tcp | grep 137
xinetd   3261 root    5u  IPv6  22914      0t0  TCP *:13782 (LISTEN)
xinetd   3261 root    6u  IPv6  22915      0t0  TCP *:13722 (LISTEN)
xinetd   3261 root    8u  IPv6  22916      0t0  TCP *:13724 (LISTEN)
xinetd   3261 root    9u  IPv6  22917      0t0  TCP *:13783 (LISTEN)

At this point, you should be able to login to the NetBackup Administrator Console, find the netbackup.example.com client, and verify that they can talk. The only thing that you should be aware of, is that you need to mount all logical volumes and partitions to their respective mount points BEFORE the restore! This is important! When in the NetBackup Administrator Console, and doing the restore, you restore the files to a specific mount point. In our case, it’s going to be ‘/’. This means, that if the host has separate /var, /u01, /, /home and other mount points, they all need to be mounted to their respective mount points BEFORE doing the restore!

[root@localhost ~]# mount /dev/work/root /mnt
[root@localhost ~]# mount /dev/work/var /mnt/var
[root@localhost ~]# mount /dev/work/u01 /mnt/u01
etc

CONGRATULATIONS! At this point, you’re ready to start restoring the data using NetBackup in the Fedora 12 live environment. Just remember, that when you’re in the NetBackup Admin Console, you need to restore the data to netbackup.example.com, and the directory path you need to use should be /mnt, not /, obviously.

I hope someone on the remote corners of the Internet finds this tutorial helpful. If so, let me know if the comments. If there are any spelling errors or I’ve missed something giving away detail of my works, also let me know so I can make the corrections. Thanks!

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CQ CQ CQ. This is KB7MRL. Over. CQ CQ CQ. This is KB7MRL. Over.

Contact was made, a short conversation ensued, and they went on to the next band. I knew immediately they were hams, and I wanted to check out their rig, where they were from, and how long they had been doing amateur radio. They were handing out Golden Spike QSL cards to anyone they could make contact with. So, I headed over to their pavilion, chatted with them for a bit, then went back to my family for lunch.

During my meeting, they gave me a couple ARRL magazines, their personal QSL cards, and a Morse Code CD (bundled with Windows software). I’ve always been interested in learning Morse (commonly called “CW” for “continuous wave”), ever since I was a scout. So, recently, I decided to set to the task of learning it. Why, you ask? What’s the point, when we have the Internet, cell phones, satellites, and other forms of communication? My answer: I like a good challenge, and I just want to see if I can learn it. I can still get involved with satellite radio, and packet radio.

So, I fired up the software, and set to task. I’m learning CW using the Koch method, which means learning the number of characters I want, at the target speed I feel comfortable with. So, I set with 10 WPM, and I’m up to 7 characters: ABHJMTW, with about 90% accuracy. I’m hoping by the end of the month, I’ll have the entire alphabet down at 10WPM, where June I can focus on doubling the speed, as well as reaching the assigned 40 characters of CW. Maybe that’s a bit optimistic. We’ll see.

Eventually, I’ll set the goal for getting my Amateur Extra license here in the States. I understand that CW is no longer a requirement for obtaining that license, and as already mentioned, that isn’t the reason for me learning CW. However, when I do get my license, and eventually a rig setup, I would like to chat on the CW-only bands from the outset. So, becoming proficient with CW before then is important to me.

I’m not sure how my wife will enjoy me picking up a new hobby, especially seeing as though I have so very little time in my life for anything, let alone a hobby. She probably won’t be excited about me setting up my ham shack when we move. But, on the flip side, she’s always complaining that I spend too much time on IRC/IM, so maybe this can take that place. After all, hams step up for public service when they can, win awards, and just enjoy good company. It’s a bit more involved than IRC, with actual purposes, so we’ll see. Maybe she’ll get her license as well. I know I would like to see my daughter licensed. That would be cool.

So, anyway, there you go. Learning CW for fun. I’ll keep progress on this blog as I go along. No promises, or threats, on the frequency of the posts.

First, so you understand, Open Discussion Day started back 4 years ago when Ploum first blogged about showing support for open protocols, such as Jabber/XMPP (using Google Talk, jabber.org, and others). I’ve blogged about it in the past, even though I missed blogging about it last year.

You can start with by checking out the page http://www.opendiscussionday.org. There, you’ll find a wiki that has some information on how to get started with open communication platforms, protocols and software. Given the ways we communicate with each other on the Internet and elsewhere, it makes sense to advocate supporting these open platforms. Here’s a brief, non-exhaustive list of various open protocols worth checking out:

• Jabber/XMPP- Jabber/XMPP is probably the most successful open communication platform to date. According to Wikipedia, it has more than 50 million active users, mostly on the Google Talk/Gmail service. It’s supported on Windows, Mac and Linux. It’s a federated protocol, which means Jabber/XMPP can communicate across different domains. It uses SSL encryption by default, which means your communication is secure, and most of the clients are free, and solid applications.
• OMB- The Open MicroBlogging protocol was started in response to Twitter. Rather than being tied to a particular vendor for your status updates, Laconi.ca, now Status.net, launched and announced they would provide an open, federated, protocol for broadcasting your “tweets”, following others, and others following you. Identi.ca was their product, and it has proven to be very successful, and the open platform has sparked a number of other microblogging servers, all in tight communication. http://army.twit.tv, http://brainbird.net, and others are based on this code, and can all communicate together. Lastly, there are a number of microblogging applications that support Identi.ca, and the others. You can follow me at http://identi.ca/eightyeight.
• IRC- Internet Relay Chat is one of the older forms of open communication in this list, except for email. It uses TCP for the transport protocol, and optionally SSL/TLS for encrypting your communication. As with everything else is this list, IRC is federated, meaning connecting multiple IRC servers together, and communicating transparently. Freenode is probably one of the more common IRC servers for open source projects. OFTC, EFNet and UnderNet are popular as well. There are many IRC clients out there that can get you chatting on any number of different IRC networks at the same time. My personal favorite is Irssi, a text-based client.
• Email- The last, but definitely not least, however the oldest, and probably most ubiquitous. Everyone is familiar with email, and it’s rare to find people these days that don’t have an email address. It too is federated, meaning you can send an email from gmail.com to hotmail.com, without thinking about it. Many open protocols have been built around email, including SMTP, IMAP and POP, as well as their secure, encrypted versions. As much as the Internet would like to see email die, I personally think it will be around for quite some time. The only thing I would ask, is that people stop sending proprietary attachments to their message, bottom post, trim unnecessary cruft from the mail, and write in plain text (I think I might be reversing my stance on HTML email- we’ll see).

Of course, there are many closed discussion platforms and protocols, such as Twitter, Facebook, Skype and MSN/AIM/ICQ/Yahoo. It’s important to note that you don’t own your data on these services, unlike the ones I’ve mentioned above. You are subject to vendor lockin, and everyone else must use those services too, as they don’t communicate with each other. But, we’re about the open discussion protocols, not the closed ones, so let’s continue.

I’m sure there are many other open communication platforms that would be worthy discussing in this post. I chose what I feel to be the biggest and most successful of the open protocols. The future will tell what else we see in this arena, but right now all I can say, is we have a great deal of options for supporting an open protocol, many of which are doing very, very well. If you have other open communication protocols that you use, make sure you specify them in the comments, or add them to the Open Discussion Day wiki. For the record, I fully support all the open protocols/communication platforms, and you can find me on any of the protocols listed above.

Happy Open Discussion Day, 2010!

First, my ZSH prompt was already developed from the outset with that in mind. So, no additional hacking has been needed on that. There are some elements that I’m not too terribly excited about. I don’t care for the dark blue directories on a black background, and I don’t care for the yellow character devices on a white background. Using the Tango scheme for gnome-terminal makes both of those scenarios much more tolerable. However, I do have additional items that I want to put in my prompt, but that will be for a later post. Also, my GNU Screen hardstatus line also needed to be compatible. This wasn’t that big of a deal, as I only needed to apply some colors to a few elements. Hhere’s a couple screenshots showing both black and white backgrounds, and how the ZSH prompt inside looks in each. Note the GNU Screen hardstatus line is at the bottom of the terminal.

From Desktop Screenshots

From Desktop Screenshots

Second, my Irssi theme also needed to work well with both. As I’ve already blogged before, I was really, really impressed with the madcows theme. However, I didn’t care for a few elements, so I started hacking it, making my own changes. I’ve tried keeping the true nature of the theme, while still adding my own style. The theme was already largely compatible with my ZSH prompt colors, it just needed some adjustments here and there, before I was totally satisfied. Further, it looked like crap using a white background, so this needed some hacking as well. I think I’m overall happy with the result, although I’m sure I’ve missed many things (like DCC, or CTCP), so there’s likely much more hacking to go before it’s perfect. However, for the general day-to-day chat, it’s 95% there. Screenshots for both backgrounds below:

From Desktop Screenshots

From Desktop Screenshots

In a nutshell, the themes are compatible with xterm-color support on most terminals. Mainly, I’m using bold and normal weights on red, green, yellow, black, white and blue. Anything else takes the default color of the terminal itself, whether it be the foreground text or the background. So, as long as your TERM variable is set to “xterm-color” or something better, you should be okay.

This post wouldn’t be complete without the source for you to try it out. Here’s a compressed tarball for giving it a shot, and reporting anything you find in the comments, if you like.

Cheers!

1. The browser uses HTTP as its default protocol. Any other protocol, such as HTTPS, FTP, etc is not default.
2. It’s already understood that HTTP is the default protocol of the browser by users.
3. Displaying “http://’ is redundant information, as the user is already aware of #2.
4. If the user is not familiar with #2, then why does it need to be presented at all? Why clutter the interface or display “geek code” to the average user?
5. Removing “http://” from the OmniBar removes the redundancy, while keeping the browser behavior and user interface entirely in tact.
6. The browser will display other protocols that isn’t default to the browser, such as “https://” and “ftp://”.

Fact of the matter is, the Chromium developers aren’t going to revert the change. I’ve read all the comments I can find on this matter, and here’s an overall summary:

It’s UGLY!
After seeing “http://” in every browser on the market since browsers have been used, as soon as it’s removed, it seems there’s a big gaping hole in the address bar. For some reason, it keeps their eyes floating back to the address bar, wondering what had happened and why it was changed, when it wasn’t hurting anything to begin with. In other words, displaying “http://” is sexy, and removing it is not. Either that, or they feel that there’s a big void in their life with it missing.

It breaks other applications with copy and paste
By removing “http://” from the Omnibar, when copying a URL to the clipboard, and pasting it into other applications, these applications may or may not be able to recognize the URI, and as a result, not make it “clickable”. However, there have been no use cases submitted of such breakage. No one has come forth saying “Application X won’t linkify a URL pasted without http:// in front”. Plenty of speculation about it, however. Plenty. But, what appears to be the problem, isn’t Chromium, but either your operating system, or the application you’re pasting your URL to. You see, Chromium will present a web object to the operating systems clipboard. If the operating system is worth its weight in gold, it will preserve the web object, and present the object to the pasting application.

So, at this point, it’s up to the application how it wants to handle it. Every email and IM client that I can test, including office document creators, treat the web object as it should, and linkifies the paste, even though “http://” isn’t part of the paste. If an application exists that doesn’t linkify the paste, it should be brought to that developer’s attention. After all, it’s the problem of their application, not Chromium. Think about it. Do you type “http://www.google.com” when chatting with your buddy, or just “google.com”. So, not only should the client recognize clipboard web objects, but it should also recognize partial URI schemes.

It doesn’t adhere to specification
This is semi-valid. At least people are concerned about Chromium adhering to spec. The specification is the URI scheme includes a scheme name, such as “http”, “ftp”, “smb”, etc, as well as an authority, path, query and fragment. So, by not displaying the scheme name in the Omnibar, Chromium is not adhering to specification. The problem with this argument, however, is that the specification is really only dealing with applications referencing a URI, through another program, source code, etc. What is displayed visually to the user shouldn’t matter if it’s “breaking spec” or not. I tell you right now, your mom isn’t going to care if her URI is valid specification.

Observations
Frankly put, I’ve been all over the mailing list and on the bug report trying to explain to people soundly and logically why the move was made, and why the Chromium developers aren’t going to revert the change. As I outlined above, no one, other that developers and Internet geeks, are going to notice, if they haven’t caught wind already. If the change is indeed breaking applications, then the developers need to know what is breaking and how. What they don’t want is a bunch of whining, moaning and threats that you’re going back to Firefox. That doesn’t help. If copying and pasting is broken in other applications, let them know what application is broken, and how it broke. You know, bug reports. Actual, solid, bug reports.

Currently, there is a regression. When removing “http://” from the Omnibox, copying the URL didn’t include “http://” in the clipboard web object. So, a paste wouldn’t show it either. So, they added “http://” to the clipboard on copy. However, something else broke this behavior, and as it sits, a copy and paste will not give “http://” in the pasted result. However, this has been marked as release critical, so the next stable push likely won’t go out until this is fixed.

Conclusion
Personally, I welcome the change. Knowing the default protocol of your software may or may not be important, but I don’t think the software really needs to communicate that to you. Think of your email client. It communicates over SMTP, IMAP and POP3, sometimes simultaneously. Yet, you don’t think twice about it, and it certainly doesn’t tell you “Okay, now I’m using the SMTP protocol to send your message.”. IRC clients don’t tell you they’re using “irc://”. Chat clients don’t tell you their protocol, whatever it may be. FTP clients, SSH clients, Samba clients. On, and on, and on. The browser is the only exception to this rule. Why? Why does the browser need to tell you that it’s using HTTP when it’s already generally understood? Isn’t the important thing interacting with the sites you want to visit? Not the protocol? Frankly, I say good riddance!

Now, if only we can get system administrators to register “domain.tld” as well as “www.domail.tld”. I would like to go to vim.org without forcing me to type the www.