It’s A Binary World 2.0

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 30, 2009

Trying to do a candid shot, you can sometimes get spotted

In yesterday’s post I mentioned how I overcame my shyness and it led to a good picture. That doesn’t mean I stopped taking candid photos. I wonder what she thought when she saw the camera pointed her way. Afterwards I shot some photos of the guy with a million balloons who happened to be passing by in the photo above. Did she think I was aiming for him? Because that was my intention - for her to think that. Although, I did want a photo of him too. I ended up taking about four and this was the best one.

Getting ready to fly away like in Pixar's "Up"

I think passed by this guy who I featured yesterday. He was setting up. It was great to get a photo of him setting up because it’s such a rare moment in the street performer’s day.

Getting ready for work

Then again, I spoke with this guy and was able to get him to pose with his funny sign. I’ve seen similar signs before on the net, but not in person. I guess it’s the best way to deal with his situation in a light manner.

Dealing with poverty with humour

Just like the shot with the ska metal guy getting ready for work, I was happy with this shot because I thought it was really neat to see a street worker in a moment away from his entertainment and hawking.

What they do when no one's around

Just one of many beautiful sunset photos I took in Hawaii

As I mentioned before, I was going to get a good sunset photo in Hawaii and I was able to here. Click on that photo to see other sunset photos I took because if I included them here, the post would be way too long. Let’s just say it was fruitful - I was able to fill up an entire 1 GB memory card with photos from the sunset.

I also walked all the out to this part at the base of Diamond Head. There were tons of people there playing all kinds of sports and even doing yoga.

Diamond Head in the Park

Yoga in front of Diamond Head

Category: General, Photography | No Comments »
Tags: Diamond Head, Hawaii, ww, yoga

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 29, 2009

Newspaper Guy Reading the Newspaper, but ready to take photos with tourists

This guy was just a block over from newspaper guy. He was also ready to take photos with tourists

I think everyone has seen a street performer painted in metal and dressed in clothes with a metallic-looking surface. I’ve seen them in Miami, Vegas, and Fort Lauderdale. But only in Honolulu have I seen three of them on the same street only a block from each other. At first when I saw the guy in the newspaper clothing I thought that was pretty creative. But then I saw the metallic guy just a block over. And after that I saw the guy in the “ska” checker board suit. Definitely some points are due for them not all looking the same. But are there really that many people who want a photo with a metallic man that they will take three such photos?

This guy was just a block over from the other metal guy. He was blaring a stereo, but was also ready for photogrphs.

The weirdest thing about Waikiki that I didn’t capture on camera this time or my last time there is the sheer number of people on the sidewalk handing out ads to entire people to all sorts of things from seedy women to gun parlours. It was definitely worse than walking through Ho Plaza on Cornell’s Campus. But not by much. Most of the time people leave me alone when I’m walking alone. I think it’s partially because I have headphones on to listen to podcasts as I walk around. It may also partially be because when I’m quickly weaving my way through the crowds, I don’t exactly look inviting. That didn’t stop one guy from standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME in an attempt to get punched in the face hand me an ad. I paused for a step and the walked right around him. People tend to interrupt me a lot more when I’m with my wife. Perhaps because we walk at a slower pace or maybe I seem more easy-going when I’m with her. I’m not sure.

Sunset in Waikiki

On my way back from the ramen house where I had dinner, I saw this sunset. I quickened my pace to get back to my room and grab my Canon camera. This photo doesn’t do any justice at all to the beauty of the sunset that day. So I vowed to capture the sunset the next day (Hawaii-time) and that’s just what I did.

And you’ll get to see it in a future post!

Uncle Bob's Ukelele

Uncle Bob’s Ukeleles was a shop there in my hotel. The next day Hawaii time (but same day EST) I took the following shot out of my balcony.

The view from my balcony

Speaking of the balcony, there were scores of birds constantly flying between the balconies to get scraps of what people had left behind. I took this little shot because it looked to me as though the red birds were in a gang and they were telling the brown bird he had better scram.

A couple of goodfeathers

Kid jumping off the wall

Kids loved to jump off this wall. There was a constant stream of them climbing up to the wall and then jumping off. Of course, it was also fun to photograph the waves crashing against the wall.

Waves Crashing against the wall

Giant Shave Ice Treats

I met the above folks when I saw them with the giant shaved ice treats. I wanted to try and sneak a photo of them, but they came over and started talking to me. So I got over my shyness and asked if I could take a photo of them. It became my favourite photo of the day, so I was quite glad to have asked them.

It was the Canon-sponsored Travel Photography workshop I attended that got me into photographing other photographers. I like that it gives an insight into what other photographers find interesting to photograph.

Photographing the photographer.

Category: General, Photography | 1 Comment »
Tags: GPS, Hawaii

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 28, 2009

The Quintessential Hawaii Scene: palm trees, the ocean, and surf boards

Diamond Head from in the Ocean.

I forgot to mention, in my first post, that since I took all of my camera bodies and my GPS unit, I didn’t want to have to worry about setting it back to EST when I got back home, so I left everything in EST. So I decided to divide my days (for the purpose of these posts) as if it were in EST. So, on Day 2 I continued to take pictures as I walked about. But I also tried out the new underwater housing I bought for Danielle’s camera. It was pretty awesome being able to have the camera with me in the water. I was able to get some photos underwater and, if Danielle had been with me, we could have taken portraits of each other in the water. Nearly all of my photos from that day were with the underwater housing and here is a sampling of those photos.

If you forget your goggles you get ugly underwater shots like this one

Seashell photographed while still in the sea

People Holding Surf boards: they're everywhere in Hawaii

Category: Computers, Photography | No Comments »
Tags: GPS, Hawaii, underwater photography

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 27, 2009

On the flight to Chicago, I traveled with many LPGA pros

Last week I boarded a plane on a business trip to Hawaii. This time my wife couldn’t come along so all I had to do after work was attend to my photography.

The view somewhere between BWI and O'Hare

Let me back up for a second.  I was supposed to leave on Sunday, so I got up at 0500 to be to the airport on time.  This turned out to be a very good thing because the airport was extremely packed.  While others worried they wouldn’t make it through the lines, I was calm in the knowledge that I had plenty of time before my plane  took off.  Little did I know how right that was.  My flight was cancelled.  Of course, they waited until the plane was supposed to board to tell us this.  And then they disappeared, leaving no one manning the counter.  Luckily I got a call to my cellphone telling me that I had been automatically rebooked.  After confirming, I called my hotel and rental car to reschedule.  Then I went home and bought a bike.

Chicago's O'Hare Airport

I was rerouted through Chicago, which I had been trying to avoid in the first place.  It actually turned out to be a very nice, very clean airport.  O’Hare was busy as heck, but It wasn’t too bad.  Eventually I was on my way to Honolulu.

Eventually I got to Hawaii - 7 hours later.  I checked into my hotel.  It was 1500 local time so I had quite a few hours to kill before I had to get to bed.  So I went out onto a pier on Waikiki  beach and took the following shots.  Then I took advantage of the cheap asian food on the island and got some Kal Bi, Kim Chi, and Jap Che for dinner.  Join me in the next post (hopefully posted in the next day or so) to continue the photographic adventure. Here’re my GPS tracks for that day. The green track is when I went to take the beach shots and the red one’s from when I went to get dinner.

Wake Boarding

He's definitely not losing that thing when he wipes out

Very soon after this they collide

Category: Me, Photography | 1 Comment »
Tags: Hawaii

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 26, 2009

Unfortunately, the flickr map page for my account only shows the last 30 or so photos on the map. So it’s pretty rare to get it zoomed out this far to show your GPS shots. I keep wishing they’d show all the GPS tagged photos (using some algorithm to combine them into one dot if you’re zoomed out far enough) so you can get an idea of where around the world the users have been. So after uploading a few Hawaii photos, it looked like this:

My flickr geotagged photos

Those are the photos from Dina’s graduation, my recent bike ride and Hawaii.

A few weeks ago I went to Dina’s graduation and uploaded the photos from the party to flickr.  This resulted in my most views per day in a long time with 1037 views on 9 June.  Well, now my Hawaii photos have beaten that with 1216 views on 24 June.  I wonder if it’s because people are searching for Hawaii photos since it’s the summer?  Here’s the graph:

Flickr Views Graph

As you can see, yesterday I had some pretty good numbers too.  I don’t want to spoil the Hawaii shots since I’m working on a travelogue about my trip, but here are some of the non-Hawaii photos that contributed to my high views that day.

Line to get into Anberlin Concert in Phillly

Playing Chess on the Boardwalk

Cayuga Lake in Ithaca, NY

Baltimore, MD

Water Damage in my old Apartment

Putting on the Garter at Richard's Wedding

Ron Paul Protest in DC

Category: Photography | 2 Comments »
Tags: flickr, GPS

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 25, 2009

A while back in time (but only two posts ago) I wrote about my first bike ride on the BWI trail. A few days later I got an email on Facebook:

My name is Marty and I happened along your BLOG about biking at the BWI trail. My first time riding the trail was Saturday June 20th and I had the same incident with the bird. Not sure if we did the loop the same way but I was going pretty fast when the bird hit me. It was my first ride in about 10 years, no helmet and I was going pretty fast …………. THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO LOSE IT!!!

Whoa!  So I wasn’t the only one being menaced by this bird!  How did he find me?

Googled - bird attack BWI. That pulled up your blog. I was wondering if anyone else had the “bird incodent.” Really funny that it was my first time on the loop.  …. In the bike shop they knew about the bird and there is actually a warning sign at the site. So to answer your question others have had the same problem.

Apparently there are lots of people menaced by this bird.  Although, to be fair, we’re probably encroaching on her nest.  So, thanks to the web, both Mary and I have learned we were not unique in being attacked.  And, according to my stats, Marty may not be the only one who has Googled that phrase and been redirected to my blog.  So hopefully others can rest assured they aren’t the only ones being targeted by the bird.

Category: Internet, Me, Site | 1 Comment »
Tags: bike trail, biking, bird, BWI

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 24, 2009

And we just about got all the kinks worked out. So update your links to point to http://www.nothingtothetable.com/

Category: Others' Blogs | 1 Comment »
Tags: Daniel, I Bring Nothing To The Table

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 20, 2009

Danielle with her bike

There were a few things we were excited about being able to do once we had a house - do laundry without sharing the machines, get away from noisy wall/ceiling neighbors, BBQ in our yard, and own bicycles.  Being extremely clean, we were unable to own bikes at the apartment because we had nowhere to store them.  Last Sunday we finally got around to buying some bikes.  After getting them home to tune them up and get the tires filled with air, we contemplated where we should go for our first ride.  Mind you, this would be our first bike ride in at least 3-4 years.  Insanely, I suggested the BWI airport loop trail.  My main reason:  I knew where it was and we had run on it before.  We had never run more than 2.5 miles of the trail, but we had been there and were familiar with it.  So we set off on the trail.  We didn’t know it yet, but it looked like this:

About halfway through the trail (according to my GPS we had made about a half of a loop) we asked someone if we were going the right way.  In the course of affirming that we were, they told us the total trail was 11 miles.  I checked my GPS and we had gone a little over 5 miles so we decided to just keep going.

Me and my new bike

I was happy to discover a park near the airport where the planes come in really close for landing.  I mentioned to Danielle that it would be a perfect place to take airplane photos.  Then we went around the bend and there were three guys with lenses somewhere between 200 and 500mm taking airplane photos.  I’m definitely going to have to do that one day.

Danielle coming up one of the toughest parts of the trail.

There were a few times where we grew a bit uncertain about whether we had been lied to about the 11 miles.  The only thing that kept us going was the GPS and seeing that we were closing the loop.  Of course, there was a bit of a problem there.  I had taken the GPS for geotagging my photos.  So I had it set to save a point every second.  This overflowed the internal buffer and the unit can’t use the memory card (as far as I’ve been able to figure out) so we were stuck with 270 degrees of a circle which started to worry me because we weren’t completing the circle.  In other words as we made progress forward, the end was being erased - like the computer/cell phone game Snake.

I almost forgot about the “bird incident”.  Danielle and I were somewhere around 85 - 90% done with the trail and she was riding in front of me (as we did for nearly the whole ride).  All of a sudden, out of nowhere, I see a bird in the shadows and the bird crashes into my from behind.  (This is hilarious because a bird flew in front of Danielle going perpendicular and I had made a joke about her being so fast, she would crash into a bird)  But then, as I kept pedaling forward, the bird hit my head a second time!  I yelled, “Danielle, a bird is trying to land on my head!”  After that, the bird left me alone.  Of course, it doesn’t make sense that a bird would actually try to land on my head.  I just had a khaki cap on.  Also, birds are dumb, but not dumb enough to try and land on a moving “tree”.  So we must have biked too close to her nest or something.  Why didn’t she attack Danielle?  Perhaps Danielle was gone too quickly?  I don’t know.  Has anyone else ever had something like this happen to them while they were bike riding?

At the end I checked my GPS stats and wrote the following.  We went 10.6 miles.  It took us 1 hr and 30 minutes.  Subtract about 5 - 10 minutes for photos and times when we had to decide which way to go.  My max speed (it was in my pocket) was 18.1 MPH (I later saw a sign that the trail’s speed limit is 15 MPH - oops!).  Our average speed was 8.1 MPH.

The 10.6 mile loop

Category: General | 2 Comments »
Tags:

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 13, 2009

Dina, Daniel, Ho, Beo, and Lauren put a lot of work into the decorations

Last weekend I went to a graduation party Dina and Daniel organized to celebrate Dina, Ho, and Lauren’s graduation this year.  It was a great BBQ event and I had a lot of fun.  I only knew about 1/10th of all the people there, so I kept entertained mainly by ecording the events of the night with my cameras.  I did end up speaking at length with some interesting people.

Beo and ho hard at work on the Tiki Bars

Daniel and Tri get the grass for the decorations - photo by Dina Nguyen

The final Tiki bars

Planning for the tiki party started months ahead and construction on the tiki bars started in May.  The tiki bars went through a couple of revisions, but the end result looked great.  I was very impressed with the work Ho, Daniel, and others did with the bar.  The other decorations in the form of tall dried grass, christmas lights, flowers, and tiki totems really added to the atmosphere.  When the sun began to set and the lights came on, it really came into its own.  For Danielle, Daniel, and I - deciding whether we could attend the Tiki Party was a roller coaster ride of decisions.

First off, we needed to see if Danielle would be working that weekend.  Then, once we found out she *would* be working that weekend, we had to know if she would be able to get out on time.  Once we had finally decided to go, Danielle threw a monkey wrench into it all by having a horrible allergic reaction to some bad shrimp.  After going to the ER and getting an injection of what was essentially liquid Benadryl, Danielle was no longer in mortal danger.  Although the medicine given to her made her unable to go to work because it made her insanely dizzy and tired, she really wanted to support her sister, so, at the last minute, we decided to go to NYC.

10 avocadoes! And other husks from the guacamole making

We ended up arriving just an hour before the party was to start thanks to some annoyingly slow traffic on the Verrazano Bridge and Belt Parkway.  This is always the case in the summer as people who have apparently never seen water, people flying kites or running before.  So they have to look while driving and, therefore, slow everyone else.  Danielle supervised the making of the guacamole.  Even though 10 avocadoes were used, it was completely gone by the end of the night.

Ho running the BBQ

Ho focused on BBQing the ribs, steak, and vegetables.  Brian focused on grilling burgers and hotdogs.  When Danielle wasn’t battling dizziness, she focused on the chicken.  Various guests brought a large portion of the alcohol.

Brian grilling the hamburgers and hot dogs

I brought along the DJ equipment I bought while in HS so Daniel could use my amp and speakers for the party.  We had a bit of uneasiness at first because my amp hooks into a mixer and getting knocked about for the past 10 years or so has messed up something with the internal wiring.  If you try and adjust the volume on the mixer, the music starts fading in and out.  Heck, even if you just leave it along it starts fading in and out.  So it needs to be set to a magical spot where the music remains at a costant volume.

Daniel setting up the DJ equipment.

Dina’s about four years younger than I am, so it really made me feel old when her friends at the party (some of whom were still in school) asked me what school I was attending.  I have been out of school for as long as they’ve been in.  Shoot, I was out before some of them started.

The Party from a Peeping Location

I think the party topped out at about 60 people, so the BBQing had to go on for quite some time before everyone had been sated.  Even then, people were munching on food late into the night.  Which brings me to the one part of the night that sucked.  Dan literally got sick to his stomache.  This was tragic for two reasons.  One, he felt badly the whole night and couldn’t really enjoy it.  Two, his departure from the party (he went inside to drink some ginger tea) cause a huge drop in the number of people I knew at the party.  He also missed out on some of the best parts of the party, including a lesson in the psysiology of alcohol poisoning.

Again from the same location

Technically, I greatly enjoyed busting out my new 50mm f/1.8 II lens.  I had been itching to try out that f/1.8 aperture in a low light situation and it didn’t dissapoint.  Although I did get *some* blurry photos, most of those were due to people moving around.  I was mostly able to get the camera to have a fast enough shutter speed that I was able to handhold the camera and get some good shots.  This allowed me to only have to throw my 580EX onto my other camera with the 28mm-105mm f/3.5-5.6 lens.  I was very, very happy with my shots and I’m now craving the substantially more expensive 35mm f/2 (it costs 3 times as much) for those times when 50mm is just a little too long.  Of course, it’s an issue magnified by the 1.6x crop factor in my camera, but I’m quite a few years away from getting a full frame camera.  So I’ll definitely be looking to get the 35mm whenever I get a chance.

Dan and Xixi chalk up the bars

I had a great time and it was worth the whirlwind travel Saturday just to attend.  I’m hoping to have my [much more modest] BBQ some time this summer as soon as I get a BBQ.  It’s one of the events we’ve been looking forward to as home owners.  Congrats to the class of 2009.

Congrats Dina, Ho, and Lauren!

Category: Photography, family | No Comments »
Tags: Dina, Dina's Graduation, party

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 12, 2009

Back in Nov of 2008 I checked out Zenwalk 5.2 and a recent LXF contained Zenwalk 6.0 - so let’s see what has changed.  It loads up with the usual Kernel messages going past on the screen.  The first screen for the installation hasn’t changed one bit from Zenwalk 5.2.

Zenwalk 6.0 - setup ncurses screen

Once again, as before, I chose autoinstall.  Once again, the installation was sparse, but very, very informative.  I don’t think I mentioned this last time, but it appears that Zenwalk 6.0 (maybe earlier versions as awell)  uses the xfs file system instead of the more usual ext3.  (Or, recently, ext4)  According to the wikipedia article I linked to, XFS is very good for large files and is one of the oldest file systems for *nix systems.  Just like last time, the installation had information on every single package as it was installed.  Just as last time I want to say that this installation was very, very simple.  I don’t see why anyone new to Linux (but not a total computer noob) would have any problems installing it.  Sure, it’s very short on eye candy - but who cares?  You should only ever see the installation screen once.  Just as before, I am convinced that Zenwalk is a very good introduction to a Slackware-type distribution thanks to this ease of installation.

Installation took a little while.  Overall, it appears the Zenwalk team have decided to maintain the same visual theme from the 5.2 release.  I can’t speak to what things looked like before that because I never used an earlier version of Zenwalk.  I then installed the LILO boot loader as before.  Then it was time to reboot.

Once again it asks for the user to agree to  licenses for the GNU GPL, Adobe, and Intel Wireless Drivers.  Then I selected the system language.  Then it was time to set the root password.  I’m happy that it asks you again for confirmation.  Then I created a user and password.  It was pretty easy.  Only every so slightly intimidating for the new user.  Same LILO screen as last time.  It looked like it got stuck, but I probably got impatient.  So I rebooted and it didn’t have Xorg working correclty.  So I logged in as root and typed xorgconfig.  Again, this is probably my fault, not Zenwalk’s. I couldnt get it to work after about 10 tries with different options. So I just reinstalled. This time I will be patient! I left it on ALL day while I was at work and the gym (>9 hours) and still no GUI. This is not good. So I go to the IRC. Turns out I was getting this weird error:


X: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//vedsa_drv.so: undefined symbol: xf86GTFMode
waiting for X server to begin accepting connections
giving up

I was told on the IRC I had to do an update. He sent me to a page that showed this was ocurring for people using nVidia cards. This is weird because usually nVidia is better supported than ATI. At any rate, it appears that something was borked with the xorg-driver-vesa package. I upgraded using netpkg on the command line. And then it worked! w00t w00t! For anyone else in my situation what you need to do is this:

• at the LILO screen hit tab
• type Zenwalk 3
• login as root
• type netpkg mirror
• select a mirror that has i486 in the name (NOT one that says restricted!) and also ends with current
• type netpkg xorg-driver-vesa
• Hit the number that corresponts to upgrade

Many thanks to the person (I’m pretty sure it was a guy) in the IRC under the handle of stillborn1.

Ok, so +1 point for the Zenwalk community being helpful.  (Also thanks to someone who, in a comment on one of my recent Linux reviews, suggested I go to the community for help before giving up)  And -2 points for Zenwalk 6.0 having the vesa driver broken out of the box.  Afterall, that’s the fallback driver if nothing else works.  Hopefully they have either remastered the disc with the vesa driver fixed or will soon release a Zenwalk 6.1 with it fixed.  Come on guys - you have a beautiful distro that works well, you don’t need these simple things messing up someone’s first experience with you.  If I were trying to pick a Linux distro, I might just give up when X didn’t come up and move to Mandriva or Ubuntu.  (It depends on the person’s personailty - some love a challenge and some will see it as something annoying)

So now we can move on.

Zenwalk 6.0 - GDM Screen

Ok, the background is a little different and the Zenwalk logo has a little more colour, but overall, it looks the same as Zenwalk 5.2.  So I go ahead and login.  The desktop looks exactly the same as in 5.2 but with a different background picture.  But, hey, if it’s not broke - don’t fix it!  They also seem to be using the same icon set as before.  Ok, so before I faulted Zenwalk for not labeling Netpkg in their settings page as being the program for installation.  Let’s see if that’s the same.  It’s now found under System -> Control Panel.  And it’s still only called Netpkg.  HOWEVER, one user did comment last time that new users should read the documentation where this is all spelt out.  So, I’m not going to beat that horse.  Basically everyone will fall into one of two camps - you think people will read the manual or you think they won’t.  And that’s what dictates your settings.  

Program-wise Zenwalk 6.0 is running OpenOffice.org 3.0 and Iceweasel (Firefox) 3.0.6.  Other than that, the basic install of Zenwalk has a small selection of programs.  They follow the same trend that nearly all distros are following now - initially give the users one program per task and let them discover other programs later.  To get a feel for the depth of the Zenwalk repositories, I decided to search for two programs only being added to the latest distro releases - Conky and Gwibber.  This time Netpkg GUI says, “No mirror selected - select on and load it.”  A HUGE improvement over Zenwalk 5.2.  Conky was available, but Gwibber was not.  Darn - again something non-intuitive.  If you don’t click on the filter “not installed” you can’t select it for installation.  This is quite a bit annoying and counter-intuitive.  Come on - don’t fix one thing and break another!  

Zenwalk 6.0 - Netpkg installing Conky

Ok, so what’s the conclusion for this Slackware-based or Slackware-derived distro?  Let’s start with the good stuff.  Installation is very simple.  If you aren’t automatically scared by the fact that it’s not a GUI, it’s pretty darned easy.  It still would be nice if there was a little bit more explanation on what the user is choosing, but I guess if you’re installing a Linux distro you can be expected to do a bit of research or revoke your license to gripe.  As before the desktop is beautiful (at least for me) and the icon set is nice.  The default setup makes sense.  It works well.  Last time I checked out Zenwalk I had not yet tried Slackware.  After having tried Slackware - Zenwalk is easily a much friendlier distro to get up and working.  Now for the negatives.  First of all, the problem with the vesa driver is a major issue, but it won’t affect everyone.  I was left scratching my head because I couldn’t figure out what was going wrong and I knew how to check the Xorg logs.  After all, vesa is supposed to be the fallback.  Again, this probably won’t affect you too much.  Another negative, but a really tiny one is that Firefox is called Iceweasel.  Debian does this as well.  Both are distros that most people probably wouldn’t try as their first distro, so I guess it’s ok.  But if I were to hand it to someone and say try out this Linux thing and they can’t find Firefox they might panic a bit.  I understand why Debian does it and I assume Zenwalk does it for the same reasons.  No need to rehash that argument, but it is true that it will be a [very small] stumbling block for the new user if they don’t read the manuals.  Finally, there’s Netpkg.  I have to give the maintainers props for fixing the issue before where it would just sit there and not give you any instructions whatsoever.  However, having to manually check the filter “not installed” is quite annoying.  Given these design issues and seeing how they could logically fit in, I think it’s clear Zenwalk is a distro for people who are more technical or geeky and just don’t have the patience to deal with Slackware and its non-dependency-calculating nonsense.

Ok, so I’d say Zenwalk is a good, beautiful distro.  I would only recommend it to a new user if they have done their research on this Linux thing.  They need to know how to find help or why Firefox is called Iceweasel or they need to have a geek friend they can ask.  For Linux veterans, Zenwalk seems nice and easy.  It seems to give all the power of Slackware with none of the  (IMHO) BS.  The repos are not as large as Fedora or Ubuntu, so check that you don’t need programs that aren’t there or are ok with compiling software.  I’m still of the opinion that anyone who is unhappy with his or her current distro should try this one out.  You may find it to be a good fit.  It has nice, light requirements including Pentium 3 and 128 MB RAM so it might be great for resurrecting some old computers without having to resort to a “light” distro.  It’s also good if you like Xfce or Gnome.  There does not appear to be an official KDE version.

Category: Linux | 8 Comments »
Tags: Zenwalk, Zenwalk 6.0

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 11, 2009

Lovers on the Boardwalk

A few weeks ago I took yet another stroll on Brighton Beach’s Boardwalk.  This famous boardwalk goes from Brighton Beach past Coney Island all the way to Seagate.  This time around I took some iconic photos from the area.  In other words, these are exactly the types of photos you would see included in any survey of boardwalk photos. Here’s the GPS track of where I went in a static PNG and then as a Google Map so you can zoom in and scroll around.

GPS Track of my Beach Photo Excursion

First of all, are these photos which are my favorite photos to take on the boardwalk - older men playing chess.

A group of men watching two compete at chess

Another group playing chess

The most interesting thing about photographing these games of chess is getting home and looking through the photos.  It is upon reflection one realized that to these men chess is truly a spectator sport.  There are usually at least a couple of people who are simply watching the game evolve.  They may be chattnig as the game progresses or may be enraptured by the skills of the players.  Where else do you see so many people gathering around a game of chess?  I’m left wondering what the analog will be for our generation.  Sure, video games have mostly replaced chess, but you just can’t do the same - at least with the current generation of video games.  A handheld like a gameboy is hard for a bunch of guys to crowd around.  A regular video game console can’t be played outside so you can’t get passerbys to glom on.

A game played without spectators

Of course, sometimes, the games are played without anyone else watching.  Here I captured what appears to be men of quite a different age playing together.  This gives me hope that the tradition of playing chess on the boardwalk is being transmitted across the generations.  I would really like to see a tradition like this take place in all the major cities.  One thing other cities, such as Baltimore, would need is an area with benches and, ideally, tables.

Dog on the boardwalk

Another great subject for the boardwalk photographer is the pet dog.  Many, many people love to walk their dogs on the boardwalk so if you like to photograph dogs, it’s a great place to be.

A group of older friends on the boardwalk

Another group of friends on the boardwalk

I think my second favourite type of shot on the boardwalk involves photographing the older couples and groups of friends that sit together on the benches.  These people generally live on or very near the boardwalk and basically choose the boardwalk as the place where they socialize with their friends rather than sit on their porches or balconies.  They usually segregate themselves by sex if there are four of them.  To me, this is such a great activity with so many benefits.  They can just sit there and wait for friends to walk by on the boardwalk.  My wife and I have often run into people we know on the boardwalk.  So it encourages more socializing.  These people also get a nice breeze and the ocean air.  I just love photographing this cross section of Brooklyn life.

Another interesting aspect of New York City in general and the Boardwalk specifically is that some part of it is always being renovated.  NYC has a LOT of citizens and visitors and they put a lot of wear and tear on the resources.  So you can often find sections of the boardwalk blocked off and being worked on.  If you like to document construction and renovation, the Boardwalk is a good subject.

Renovation on the Boardwalk

The east-west orientation of the Boardwalk can lead to some awesome sunrise and sunset photos.

This weather vane was too tempting to not photograph

Of course, how can you go to Coney Island and not photograph the iconic wooden roller coaster the Cyclone?

This time photographed from the back on the suggestion of my wife

Of course, people will use any kind of gimmick to get people's attention. In this case, blowing gigantic bubbles.

Category: Photography | 3 Comments »
Tags: Boardwalk, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, Coney Island

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 10, 2009

I missed the release by a couple of days, but as is my tradition, here is the release notice:

Ladies and gentlemen of the Royal Explorers Club! Your attention please. It falls to me to be the host of our proceedings to-day, as we celebrate a great achievement in the annals of this hallowed organization — the discovery of what is truly a magnificent specimen among all FOSSdom. When Dr. Brattlesworth and I began this safari more than six months ago, we knew full well the many snares, toils, and dangers that awaited us along the hundreds of miles of tracking our quarry across the plains. But we also maintained a steadfast belief that by living with the land, and becoming part of the larger ecosystem where this incredible animal takes refuge, we could record for posterity the way of life of that marvelous creature — the Leonidas!

What’s that? Oh, yes, dear me, the slides. I know you didn’t come all this way to hear my prattle, so let’s say we, ah, get right down to brass tacks as it were! Ho-ho! Yes, here we can see an exquisite scene of the beast at repose, secure in his den, thanks to the mandatory access control enhancements, which the astute among you will know better as “SELinux”, to his virtualization systems. Upon closer inspection of his habitat we reveal further improvements to his virtualization lair, including the merging of KVM and QEMU, stronger VNC authentication for guests and a much enhanced virt-manager. Finally, we were able to determine, as you’ll see in this slide, that our crafty king of beasts has secured his lair using the protection of integrated fingerprint authentication and DNSSEC.

Next slide please, Dr. Brattlesworth — Here, we find the quadruped leaping to action in a flash with its 20-second startup — and do observe the animal’s graceful form, achieved through kernel mode setting and Plymouth. We discovered, upon further examination, that the Leonidas maintains his sleek figure through the help of his new Presto feature, which allows him to keep his bandwidth trim while digesting updates that keep him healthy and content. By this point, Dr. Brattlesworth was positively ecstatic about our discovery, and I had to calm the poor chap down with some of the local fire-water. That was a rum morning, wasn’t it, my dear fellow? Ha ha!

Oh, balderdash, where was I? Ah yes, next slide. Here we see a diagram of the cranial capacity of the average member of his species, compared with that of our subject the Leonidas. Through a form of advanced evolution to which Dr. Brattlesworth and I refer as “Free and Open Source Software Development Methods,” he has developed the sophisticated abilities to comprehend code using GCC 4.4, Python 2.6 and NetBeans 6.5, and to patrol a much larger area of space quickly, using his support for the Ext4 file system

Ah, my favorite slide is next! Here we see the Leonidas at the end of a day as the full moon rises above the plain, safe and sound with his new more understandable and flexible volume control. Oh-ho! Perhaps those among you not asleep in your easy chairs by the fire, or otherwise engaged in deep conversation, sparked no doubt by our fascinating presentation, saw my little play at sonic humour. *ahem* Yes, well.

So now that you have seen the results of our intrepid safari into the land inhabited by the Leonidas — truly a worthy quarry, and a wonder for us to behold, which we are proud to share with you, our colleagues, as always. I hope that you, like I — and I trust my dear fellow adventurer Dr. Brattlesworth — are already eager to return to the veldt and witness the next stage of growth of this superlative creature. Do enjoy your handouts, which are all provided on this marvelous new invention called the ‘live compact-disc,’ and which you may feel absolutely confident in passing on to your many associates and other curious passers-by.

Let us adjourn now to the smoking room for our brandy and cigars!

Category: Fedora | No Comments »
Tags: Fedora 11

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 10, 2009

I recently posted the photos I took during Dina’s Graduation Party. I then posted the link to Dina’s wall on Facebook.  Check out the spike in my views:

My Daily Views on Flickr

That’s 1037 views in one day!  Thanks guys!

Category: Photography | No Comments »
Tags: flickr

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 9, 2009

Dina, a new graduate!

A few weeks ago I attended Dina’s Bachelor’s Graduation.  After having attended my own as well as Daniel’s, I had some idea of what to expect, but this was the first college graduation I had attended outside of Cornell.  (Not counting my dad’s graduation when I was young)  I have have come to believe that all college graduations are the same everywhere.  It is a bit odd that Stony Brook used red gowns instead of black ones.  The was also my first long outing with my GPS unit.  Here’s where I ran around that day. First as a static PNG:

The Path We Followed for Dina's Graduation at Stony Brook

and here it is as a Google Map:

I think some of the wild movements near the basketball stadium are due to getting an erratic fix in the building.

Stony Brook Entrance

Walking around campus I saw the following sign.  I still don’t know what a sea wolf is.

You're In Seawolves Country

After Dina went inside for her college’s graduation, I decided I should probably try and figure out where she would be sitting so I would know where to aim my camera.

Dina's Seat

After some, but not too much, blabbering, Dina got her diploma.

Dina shaking hands

Getting Diploma

Afterwards, we took portrait shots.

Dina with her family

Dina and Brian

After that Dina went to line up for the university-wide graduation we went to grab a quick bite to eat and then waited for the university graduation to begin.  We couldn’t find a seat in the shade so we stayed under the seats for most of the ceremony.  But when the graduates were coming out, I took my 55mm-200mm lens out to capture Dina from the middle of the football field.

Dina walking to her seat in the football field

While waiting for her to finish packing up her dorm room, I noticed this medallion Dina had received and decided to photograph it.

Stony Brook Graduation Medallion

Overall it was a great photo day.  I used my two camera technique, first used last time I went to an Orioles game.  I used all the knowledge I had to get the best shots possible, including making sure to use flash to get rid of facial shadows in the noon-time photos.  It was also a fun photo excursion because I tracked my path using my GPS unit.  See more of my photos from Dina’s graduation here.

Category: Photography, family | 4 Comments »
Tags: Dina, Dina's Graduation, Graduation

Posted By Eric Mesa on June 6, 2009

This is going to be the first time I look at a fresh install of Ubuntu in a long while.  I first installed Ubuntu quite a while ago and then I just kept distro upgrading from there on.  Then I installed Crunch Bang Linux on my laptop.  So now I will be testing the installation.  This may end up being a pretty short review because not much has changed from the previous Ubuntu, or so I hear.  The biggest new change is the notification system.  I’ll be sure to check that out.

Ubuntu 9.04 - GDM screen

The new GDM login screen looks so sweet!  And the new colour scheme is very nice!  It’s a little more orange than brown.  Very nice looking.

Ubuntu 9.04 - Gnome Desktop

Also, they’ve made a very subtle change that really tweaks me the right way.  The virtual desktop (the two squares on the bottom right) have been given rounded corners.  Don’t know why, but my eyes love that!  So I decide to install.

First I select my language.  Then came the time zone selection.  It figured out on its own that I was in the EST time zone.  (GMT-5)  

Ubuntu 9.04 - installation time zone selection

I like that it tells you how many steps you have left to the end.  Then came keyboard layout.  Then came partitioning and I told it to use the entire disk.  After that was the username and password screen.  Then installation began.  Very easy and no real imtimidating parts for any new users, Ubuntu’s primary target.  After the install, it’s reboot time.  So here’s the desktop.

Ubuntu 94 - Installed Desktop

In typical Ubuntu style, the desktop is devoid of icons.  And man is that orangish desktop really growing on me!  I think it’s the slickest looking Ubuntu yet.

Ubuntu 94 - Update Manager is subtle

The update manager, as I had read on the interwebs before, is very subtle.  It doesn’t pop up and interrupt you, it just stays minimized on the bottom bar.  This is good in that it’s not like in the old days of AOL Instant Messanger where you’d be typing up a report and then suddenly you’re typing into an IM window.  It’s bad in that I almost didn’t notice it was there.  Oh, I spoke too soon!  As I was typing the previous sentence, the updates window did pop up.  Perhaps it’s because it was first boot.  Or maybe because it was idle, I wasn’t doing anything at the time.  

Ubuntu 9.04 - Updates

I like a LOT of things about this dialog.  It’s been a while since I used Ubuntu (at least one release cycle).  First of all, I like the “Welcome to Ubuntu”.  Makes me feel pretty welcome.  Those simple things make a big deal.  Second, I like that it tells you exactly what to do if you don’t want to do the updates now.  Third, I like that it says (in bold) “Important Security Updates”.  So I know these are important and they need to be done.  I also like the ability to see the description of the update, but the fact that it’s hidden at first.  I’m definitely reconsidering introducing my wife to Ubuntu instead of Mandriva.  

Ok, I was racking my brain trying to figure out what to do to trigger the new Ubuntu notifications.  I ended up basically IMing myself.  Here it is, in its Mac Growl-like glory:

Ubuntu 9.04 - Ubuntu Gnome Notifications

I also noticed the new applet where you can setup your IM status from the same place as where you shut off the computer.

Ubuntu 9.04 - Setting the Status

The goal is to eventually use that not only for IM, but for all programs that would want to know about presence on the network.  In other words, there would be hooks into Skype, Ekiga (Voip/SIP phone), and anything else that needs to know if you’re there (maybe the screensaver?).  This way instead of putting an “away” status on each program individually, you can do it globally.  Finally, they added a shutdown timer.

Ubuntu 9.04 - Shutdown Timer

Fedora used to have this in Fedora Core 6 or around there.  But then they got rid of it.  Why did Fedora get rid of it?  Why is Ubuntu adding it in now?  Will all distros have this now?  Hard to tell.

Ok, so, as I warned at the beginning this is a short review.  I didn’t look at the programs that came with Ubuntu, because this time around the Linux Format Magazine team created a special edition that came with KDE and Xfce built in (as well as some other extra programs).  But, except for the OpenOffice.org situation last release (where they had 2.x and everyone else had 3.0) they usually have the latest software that is stable and don’t often put bleeding edge software (except for their last LTS that had a beta version of Firefox 3).    Ok, back to the conclusion.  Shuttleworth said, months ago, he wanted pretty to be a feature and he wanted to catch up with Mac in terms of operating system beauty.  This distro is a good step in that direction.  The rounded corners in the desktop switcher are nice.  The new theme is much nicer with the orange tones.  The new notification sysem looks slick as ice.  Of course, many people have complained that it isn’t as good in practice.  With Gwibber, for instance, with the old notifications you could click “reply”, but the Ubuntu standard does not allow for buttons.  As many people have pointed out in past reviews, this is one of the problems inherent in doing a 200 mile view look at a distro and just testing it for a few hours.  I understand and recognize that limitation.  However, I’m just trying to get a feel (and give my readers a feel) for what’s out there.  They can then continue the testing on their own.  There are many others, such as Dan of Linux Outlaws, that tend to test their distros for a while before they write about it.  There’s room in this ecosystem for both types of reviews.

In the end, Ubuntu wowed me, but not enough to overthrow Mint as the top recommendation for someone new to Linux.  They are, however, quickly closing the gap.  Ubuntu remains a top recommendation, together with Linux Mint, and Mandriva 2009 (I have not yet taken a look at 2009.1).

Category: Linux, ubuntu | 3 Comments »
Tags: ubuntu, Ubuntu 9.04