Tea and web design

Xubuntu desktop setup

2010-03-10T08:42:00.004+02:00

I've decided to take a shot at using Linux for my desktop set at home and I've settled with xubuntu because of my love for xfce over and above any of the other window managers.

So far the installation has been great. I have a 2ghz machine which I am using with only 256mb of ram, definitely need an upgrade. 80 GB hdd should be plenty for now seeing as I've got my external 640. The computer seems to sporadically freeze whenever it deems itself unfaithful which I've still got to take into consideration and have a look at, not sure what that might be.

wxPython is my next roller coaster of learning, been doing tutorials and so on which has been a great learning experience for me. Buttons, textCtrls, bindings.. all very fun for me.

Work been learning and studying hard getting down and dirty with Drupal which has been much of a happy experience, I'm quite sure I'll be doing more Drupal websites in the future for work. For now, working on an accommodation portal. (As the rest of South Africa throws their bits in before the World Cup)

Trying to think of some kind of web listing/online business directory of my own to start running seeing as Pizza seems to be a bit stagnant for the time being and it would be a blessing to make a few pepperoni's and cheese. Any ideas?

Brief updates while sipping tea and eating my morningly dose of Pronutro.

Take Care!

[EDIT]

Oh.. and I found this this morning while trying to get my head around aptitude. Thought it was a good read/watch:
http://luv.asn.au/overheads/aptitude/aptitude-intro.html

What if...

2010-03-01T10:00:00.000+02:00

Monkeys come from monkeys,
I answered the request,
It’s been this way since life began, I told my honored guest

And people come from people,
A mommy and a dad,
From these come another human, a little girl or lad.

These are the laws of nature;
Each produces its own kind,
With fences built around the species, no exceptions come to mind.

The engineer who designed each creature
With such love and care,
Placed infinite detail in each feature, all uniquely rare.

Voluminous information is in one cell,
Miniaturized and compact,
Details greater than math can tell, fixed in an unseen contract.

The DNA, the proteins complex,
Myriad parts, the pulse of life,
Nutritious feeding, the role of sex, between these necessities place no knife.

Add circulation, aeration, and elimination,
With quality control production,
At rates to one thousand times a second, division and multiplication.

All these and more must be in place
For life ever to be beckoned.
This demands an architect, a genius, a producer, it can be reckoned.

If Darwin could squint through an electronic lens,
If he knew what we know now,
His book on origins would 180 turn, to observable facts he would bow.

Did life begin in a dirty pond,
Struck by lightning, a coincidental event?
My friend, you know the truth: the odds eliminate such an accident.

Did the species evolve upward,
By mutation and by chance,
Each yielding on Darwin’s tree some elegant new branch?

From amoeba to tadpole,
From fish to walking on land,
From creeping thing to flying, from monkey’s grasp to hand?

Mutations are destructive;
It is always so you see.
That is why from Russia’s Chernobyl, all residents did flee.

Neither human observation,
Nor the strata of the rock,
Give a glimpse of one mutation raising the standard of life’s stock.

Where are the missing links, I ask,
Not one but the millions required,
To verify Darwin’s theory and by scholars to be admired?

Transitional forms don’t exist, dear scholar,
Because life didn’t happen that way.
It time to be honest with ourselves, and let truth rule the day.

Intelligent designer, artist supreme,
Who for a canvass employs a butterfly’s wing,
Lover of beauty and originality diverse, what shall we call you, if such a request I may bring?

My child, a kind voice answered,
With a hint of mystery and mirth,
Look in the book that opens, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

J. Daniel Lupton
2007

Kevin's Noodles

2009-11-24T10:51:00.001+02:00

(10:50:42 AM) Kevin: what i do
(10:50:47 AM) Kevin: is boil the kettle
(10:50:57 AM) Kevin: and break the noodles up into a lunchbox
(10:51:07 AM) Kevin: and put a little bit of the flavouring on
(10:51:11 AM) Kevin: and some extra spice too
(10:51:22 AM) Kevin: and then when the kettle is boiled
(10:51:30 AM) Kevin: i add enough water to cover the noodles properly
(10:51:42 AM) Kevin: and then straight away microwave them for two minutes
(10:51:47 AM) Kevin: then when that's done
(10:51:55 AM) Kevin: i get rid of all the excess water
(10:52:05 AM) Kevin: leaving enough to keep them moist
(10:52:14 AM) Kevin: and i mix the rest of the flavouring in
(10:52:20 AM) Kevin: and some more of the spice
(10:52:31 AM) Kevin: and i chuck a piece of bread on top to have with it
(10:52:33 AM) Kevin: :D
(10:52:37 AM) Kevin: i love it

... Enjoy!!!

Hypnosis..? Power of suggestion..?

2009-07-11T13:00:00.003+02:00

Just happened to be walking into Pick n Pay, Fish Hoek this morning/afternoon.. I hear this British accent and my friend and I are intrigued.

It so happens after I went to find out what the event and the festivity was , it's some bloke named Alan Marriott. If you have ever seen Darren Brown you will know what kind of person I am speaking about.

So this guy tells us that he will do a display there and then of a show that he is going to be doing on the 25th.

He whips three cards out of his pocket and tells my friend Richard to pick one, the cards have different shapes on them. Triangle, circle and square. After picking his card Richard is ordered to give me the other two cards he didn't chose and hold the chosen card flat down between his two hands. Then Richard gets told, after some eye staring etc that he is holding the card with the triangle.

Then he does it to the both of us, Richard picks the triangle again and this guy happens to KNOW that Richard MUST be trying to trick him.. he tells Richard this and then suddenly says Richards holding the triangle again. He was right. My turn. I chose the card with a circle, he was right again.

This is where he singled me out and says that when he tells me, I must put my hands behind my back and chose a number with my fingers. Richard stands behind me to make sure that I don't change the fingers I have chosen.

First time round he stares at me, deeply into my eyes and I choose the number two, by default my pointy and middle finger. He guesses two. He was right.

Second time round he tells me to "clear" my mind. I am not the type to really give into these hypnotic types. Anyways, while thinking about other random things, he stares deep into my eyes again and guesses correctly the number which I have chosen. Five.

Trickery? Magic? Skill? Power of suggest? Conscious suggestions? Subconsciously suggesting something to me, in order to subdue my will?

Not sure what to make of it.

Kuki Linux for AAO

2009-07-11T12:59:00.000+02:00

So, I've been running gnome and eeebuntu on my AA1 basically since I got it..
I barely even gave Linpus a try, I am not really that much into those Fedora based distros.

The time then came when I realised that eeebuntu was really designed for the eee pc's.. even though it does support the AA1 quite nicely. I also realised that I didn't even really like the whole Gnome thing it had going down.
Gnome just isn't really my thing, it's too bulky and actually quite a bit monlithic. I think that's the perfect word actually. Almost sums Gnome up it it's entirety for me, just a personal thing I think.. I basically feel the same way about KDE too.

When you only have an 8 GB SSD drive who would want something as big as Gnome is anyways, and nice thing about eeebuntu is that it came loaded with Compiz and Open Office, which is nice, and I'd probably want to get Open Office sometime but for now I'm pretty darn pleased with my Kuki Linux installation.

Kuki Linux, basically based on the Kuki kernel from what I understand, specifically for the Acer Aspire One series. Once I had done a little bit of reading on this specific Linux distrobution it really appealed to me that it seemed so VERY lightweight. By default the window manager is Xfce, it comes with most of the Xfce applications packaged with it and it most definitely seems to me like it has a lot more customability for me than what eeebuntu ever had.

On another note, my wireless lights on my AA1 never worked when using eeebuntu, yes there was a hack for that which I just never bothered getting around to, I guess I should've but I just didn't. Now Kuki really impressed me this way.. upon installation wireless worked first time, and so did the lights (yay).. the sound worked 100%. (As a side note, my sound was never PERFECT when it came to eeebuntu, eeebuntu had so many options for my sound drivers and I never really knew specifically which one to use, I think it was ALSA but even once I had that one set.. now and then I would get some weird crackly sounds when playing sounds or music which really isn't what I wanted to hear :()

Right now, using Kuki I just have not heard those crackling sounds once, overall I am really impresseed. It books up really quick due to the fact that the kernel is packaged specifically for the AA1 series. Apparently the battery lasts longer too! Which is truly great.

Seems I have a whole lotta setting up to do from here on out though, in eeebuntu I had my Python setup already going with SPE as my IDE and all. But since I've done the fresh reset with Kuki I guess I really should start setting all that up again and getting my AA1 ready for development...

A new begining...

2009-05-17T09:15:00.002+02:00

Let this be known..
If anyone was reading this post asynchronously you would've given up three minutes ago.
Reason being..?
I am starting the transition to the Dvorak keyboard from our good old friend QUERTY.
It feels like amnesia.
But going strong!

More news is that Epistle is up and running, apache, ASDL dual routing & lots more to come!
More posts to follow once I get the hang of the new keyboard layout.
Inspire me.

Post comment if you are a Dvorak brother :)

Web Africa's Service

2009-05-09T13:09:00.002+02:00

I must say, briefly, that I am rather astounded by Web Africa's service this Saturday afternoon.

I emailed them about 15 minutes ago asking about the local adsl packages, as I'll be setting up a local Debian server for myself pretty soon ! (yay, more blogs about that to come. I'm sure.)

Within two minutes of sending off the query to Web Africa I got a reply, very pleasant mind you.

Hi Zachary

Thank you for your inquiry.

"...Does that 10 GB roll over each month? Or if not all used, will the remaining vanish?"

It does not roll over. Ie. You receive 10GB per month regardless of whether you finish it or not.

Please let us know if you have any further questions

Have a pleasant weekend :)

I will definitely be going with Web Africa when I start buying local gigs, and think about it. Something so simple, won me over...
I just wish that our other service providers were so on top of the game.
Don't you?
I.e. Telkom, and what about Vodacom? hey.. I could spend all day listing 'em!
Either way, let them be an example to the rest and as the mail said:
Have a pleasant weekend!! :)

Funny Comparison

2009-05-01T12:49:00.002+02:00

I started reading the Google Chrome article on Wikipedia today and when I stumbled on the claim to fame with it's 1.42% of the web browser market share, being the forth most widely used web browser I realized this funny comparison:

MS with it's 66.10% could be almost directly compared to ANC and the politics of this country. I don't entirely have many opinions to back up this claim, but it's just my opinion and the way that my thought processes wrapped around web browsers and politics.

Mozilla Firefox could be compared to the DA with it's 22.48% market share, a very much used web browser by most of the users of the internet that I know.. and a much MUCH better web browser than something like IE. But yet, it's still slowly working it's way to the top, getting there, slowly. A gradual process by winning the souls of the IE users as the discovery of the usability and efficiency of Firefox becomes imminent.

And as I've been using Google's new Chrome at work I've been realizing that it's actually somewhat cool. I love the larger views of the web pages I browse that I have when I use Google Chrome.
But then, with obviously not direct comparison. Let's say that in our little analogy that Google Chrome is Cope. A new and upcoming web browser with only a small percentage share of 1.42% but getting there slowly.

With that said, this post, being all so not too very interesting took me all in all about 2 hours to write whilst doing other things around the house etc.

Was just a funny thought, even funnier for me to hope that maybe DA will have better luck next time ;)

Viva Zuma!

Parsing and editing HTML

2009-04-27T09:07:00.002+02:00

So recently I've started working and I've come across this labourious job so I've decided to write a script.

I'm going to be parsing HTML code and then editing a table within the code and then upload the webpage again to an FTP.

This needs to be done on about 450 websites, although each table the same, each website is different.

I'm using PHP to write this script because I've even been thinking of later on adding a "admin" panel to a script like this, so that you can directly update the content of all 450 websites from one central admin.. :)

All seems to be going well so far. I'm making use of Simple HTML DOM for PHP. Which is just a HTML parser, it's quite nice but I wish that it had the option to actually edit the HTML code too, or at least return the positions of the code within the HTML files.
Now once again, that's just me being lazy, but then again. The reason why am I writing this script is because I AM lazy and I really could not be too very interested in updating 450 sites manually, that is how the process gets done. Manually. No other work around has been found yet. Let's hope that this works :)

So this morning I'm spending time on the FTP part of the script and seeing that each website has about 5 HTML files which need updating each time. I should store those in an array or something. Still thinking and mulling, safe to say, awesome so far.

Was it Marlon who always told me... "A lazy coder is a good coder" ?

Adios ;)

Political Compass

2008-11-03T12:03:00.002+02:00

I read about the political compass on my friend Marlon's blog and decided to do the test myself.

More posts for the future ;)

PHP thoughts

2008-06-04T01:15:00.002+02:00

Oh my how time flies. It's been ages since I've created my last blog post already.
I've recently been looking into some PHP. I'm thinking of creating my main personal
site with my most beginner's knowledge of it. It seems quite handy and quite interesting after viewing some source code. (Marlon's sourcery.co.za source code)

More to come.

All your thoughts are belong to us

2008-04-06T23:05:00.003+02:00

How about computers reading our thoughts ? Possibility maybe ?? Or absolute impossible nonsense? Would be interesting though wouldn't it ? I watched a program briefly on television recently about it and then today I was just doing some reading here and there about the tests and whatever else that has been done. It's all quite interesting actually but many people, (myself included) think that it could be quite far-fetched.

Now that could be the case but just imagine a future where every thought process that you ever think could be read. If we add a bit of cellphone to whichever device we would use for reading thoughts. We could have telepathy enabled by downloading the latest xyz update. Thus we wouldn't need speech anymore. That could get quite tricky when in a crowd, reading everyones thoughts. If our thoughts could be read and we could read thoughts that would mean that thoughts could be given to us too. I suppose?

Or think about this. It's a lovely autumn afternoon and you decide to do a little bit of shopping at the local supermarket. As you walk in the door all the current specials get bluetoothed directly to you. You get told information like, what items are for sale on special and at what cost. You get told which isle the item is in and if you are really lost you could program your self installed GPRS system to tell you the very co-ordinates of where the item should be and it could direct you there. "Ten steps forward then turn 30 degrees to the left, another 3 steps and jump up and down a few times.." or maybe not exactly like that but something like that. Anyways, another idea means another paragraph.

Passwords. You could enter your passwords through thoughts which then means that it would be much harder for anyone else to find out your password, unless you think your password out 'loud' to everyone, which would be rather silly. But even then, surely, through your thoughts you could be identified as you, as everyones brain is different. Or something like that. I don't know too much about the scientific details behind this whole idea but it interests me nonetheless.

Surely if our thoughts can be read that means that possibly through our brains our bodies could be regulated too? Or maybe that wasn't the right word but I mean something like 'checked or monitored' in some way. Like maybe organs could be checked and their lifespan could be recorded. Which could then mean that you could be notified when you are about to get sick. And if the lifespan of our organs are known, maybe this could then be used to estimate how many years we have left to live? Ha-ha! What then could mean that possibly one day when you are very old and ready to die in the future you'd get some kind of mail delivered to you with a sheet of your life statistics. Displaying things like 'how many seconds you've slept', 'how many times you've blinked' and etc etc.

All this actually sounds pretty strange and futuristic to me but then again the telephone or cellphone idea was probably pretty strange to someone else back in the eighteen hundreds, he just couldn't blog about it ;)

possible?

Nokia morph concept

2008-03-21T13:38:00.004+02:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zto6aTZM9t0

Just something that a friend showed me that I found quite interesting. It really seems the future is here.. doesn't it? ;) a cool idea, Marlon! we should start coding the kernel behind it! how fun would that be.

I haven't made a post for ages now and I really should start again. Just lack of things to write about. Working on my Javascript assignment for college still. Due date is almost near.

Found this slightly funny: http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/02/10-uses-for-the.html

Thinking about this all some more and doing some reading about nanotechnology.. I wonder how possible something like that is? Or if it is even possible? I mean it would be something desired, an interesting toy and I would love one for myself. Actually, I'd like a morph anything, not just a Nokia phone. It would make life so much easier. More compact. When thinking about the possibilities of this I happened to think of going back in time to about 400AD and telling those folk about cellphones, internet, cars, satellites, space, etc etc and all those other things. It's a rather weird thought when thinking about the possibilities of the future. When me and you are in our 80s. What kinds of cool and fun toys will we have then and old men to play with? We'll just have to wait and see or become a part of the development of the new future which awaits us all.

And what shall become..

2008-02-14T21:47:00.003+02:00

Thanks for your response Self. It almost makes me wonder because I think some side of myself has given into some of this propaganda. It's ridiculous. It's sad that throughout my life I have been given some idea of, or idea about what is it to be happy or content. I don't know but I suddenly feel almost as if I could almost go insane any moment. I am totally over these 'ideas' and, or 'thoughts' or 'what we should strive for or what we should wish to become' and and and.. oh my but the list can go on forever.

Am I even thinking right now as I type? I don't know but today has been a different and weird day and just the whole thought of propaganda that you. self. has made me think about is quite awesome! ha ah, what am I even talking about half of the time. Or even thinking about.

I like this idea of talking in some way that is a reply. As Marlon once said we should blog to and fro making responses to each others post. Or whatever.

Yeah. Other than that I can't even say what that was all about. Hopefully it will bring back memories someday of something because that is what's most important. To me anyways.

np: Empyrium - The Shepherd and the Maiden Ghost

Tea time but yet time to blog first..

2008-02-09T22:35:00.000+02:00

So I'm sitting here after a long needed walk around Clovelly and half way up the mountain. Feeling almost tired but also relieved.

Anyways.. I've decided that while I'm at it I might as well kick start myself back into the Blender gear again. I always enjoyed testing out things and experimenting with Blender although I was never really good at modeling but this time I'm going to give it a shot and see what I can make of it.

Assignment is due on Monday and busy writing out the rather detailed explanation of what my assignment is all about. Need to do more of that tomorrow and finalize everything so that I can put it together.

Do you really think that all our wants or desires are through Hollywood created ideas of what happiness is? Or, is most of what we see in Hollywood and etc, the happiness, the joys, the riches, the friends, the family and all that. Do we only think we'll be happy if we have those things because of what we have been taught throughout our lives or is it almost instinct to KNOW that those things would make us happy?
.. Or do they?

Either way after a *yawn* now it's time for tea and then some more Blender, maybe? Or CSS with my friend James. We'll see.

np: Amelie - Comptine D'un Autre ete : L'ap

CSS for the day

2008-02-04T13:28:00.000+02:00

All right. So now since I've started this web and graphic design course at college, I've really decided to give it my best and my all. This is finally the part where I really get down to some serious coding and move forward and stop lingering in this 'hello world' knowledge and experience of most languages that interest me.

As I go through my studies and whatever else. I would like to list all my findings and new discoveries of how things work here and slowly, but surely hope to become a master coder. Ha ha.

A few of the programming languages out there that interest me are: Python for one, over the years of doing my research and the small bit of experimental work that I have done has shown that Python is going to be the language for me. I rather like the idea and the capabilities of this language. There won't be another, I'm sure. Python all the way out for me now, and I have to master it. No question.

The second language that I would love to move forth into completely and know without a doubt has to be PHP. Now php comes along with HTML and of course, CSS. These are the languages that I have been learning at college so far and they are pretty simple but great. I can't wait till I am setting up my own website, forms, maybe even some php stuff etc.

During this time that I've been at college we have even started a little bit of Javascript which will surely help, all round. I am enjoying the fancy things, and additions that I can add to my page.

From now on, it is my goal, every night I must put in at least a good few hours. Two of my good friends are doing the same and similar courses. So I must either try and venture into this 'new' goal of becoming a master at these few subjects along with them. Inspiration helps too!

Other than that I still have some time for my odd few hours of Ragnarok, which is bad. But still fun =P

My aim is as follows for the end of this year:

HTML(XHTML) and CSS (This is currently being covered at college, but I would still like to learn both these languages more in depth.)

Python (I've done the bare minimum of Python right now as it is, but my memory is not too good and the last time that I actually practiced was a good few months ago. I need to get into a better routine of practicing.)

PHP (For the near future.)

Oh and one last thing, I like the way that this Google blogger this is laid out. It's quite fancy and easy to use. Thanks Marlon! ;)

Dreams...

2008-02-02T12:43:00.000+02:00

Last night we had a power outage here at about 20:40pm. It wasn't very pleasant because I was busy studying some of my usual CSS work and trying to put new things together to see what works with what.

Well after some sitting and thinking about when the power may come on, my friend and I then decided to take a walk down to Fish Hoek beach. It was quite a different and pleasant walk for a change with everything in darkness. All that could be seen was houses with their windows lit by candle light. I like these sorts of things. Once we got to the beach I looked up at the dark mountain and once again all that could be seen was a mountain silhouetted. Which is really different from the norm because usually there's lights everywhere and I barely ever get to see the town and mountain in that 'light.'

This morning I woke up with the remembrance of three very strange dreams in mind.
Actually I couldn't even be bothered with typing them all out ;) but still the thought remains, what do dreams mean? And, or, where do they come from? What are their purpose?

For now back to some CSS.

Fire range in the South

2008-02-01T14:08:00.000+02:00

I've just been reading up about the fires that took place this last weekend around Cape Town, on the southern part of the Peninsula. It's been quite a devastating run for nature this weekend as lots of fynbos and greenery has been destroyed. Apparently arson. :(

I wonder why people would do things like this purposefully. What is the nature of man to go and burn down his surroundings that keeps this area so breezy and full of life. I often enjoy my rides around Kommetjie through Scarborough. Viewing the scenery in the area is great and it has taken me a while to realise the truth beauty of the surrounding areas where I live. I often wish that I had use of my own transport to get places and see new things as there's so much of Cape Town and surrounding areas that I have never seen.

I need to get myself a motorbike! They aren't even expensive or so I hear. That would be great. My friend recently got one and it seems like so much fun, and with transport there would be so many new things for me to see and new places for me to go.

Well for now I'm going to be trying out this blogging deal once again to see where it takes me and where I will be going with it I do not know. It may be a fun enjoyable ride or it could be another plunge into the depth of nothingness but we'll see. I hope to make something of it. Online records are always great to keep!