Category: Life in General

Happy Thanksgiving, all in America. I wonder if anyone even thinks about what Thanksgiving was originally intended to be anymore? For many, Thanksgiving is all about getting ready for Black Friday. Heck, I can’t claim to be unaffected by this myself, honestly. =:) If anything, I was pretty caught up in the excitement of trying to get a sneak peek at the deals before they came out. =:) But, now that they have come out, and I’ve spent a couple of hours looking through the advertisements that landed in my driveway, cleverly disguised as the morning newspaper, I think it’s all kind of silly. That’s not to say that we of the Kasper clan won’t be venturing out tomorrow morning Read more…

Woot! After a late-night hacking session (well, I must be getting older… 12-midnight is now “late-night”!!!), my KPIlot memofile conduit: – shows up in Kpilot’s config dialog – accesses the MemoDB database – lists all memos in all categories Coming along nicely…. =:) Next: understand gnome-pilot-conduits’ memofile.

I just noticed also that KMail’s next/previous message keys are Right/Left Arrow, whilst Up/Down Arrows ALWAYS scroll the message. THIS MAKES TONS OF SENSE!!! I always hated in Evolution how if you hit the Up arrow while the message list is focused, you go to the previous message. In other words, you either had the message pane selected and up/down moved between messages, or you had the message preview pane selected and up/down scrolled the message. This makes kmail tons more user-friendly, IMO!! Nice thinking, kmail guys!! Also, the fact that you can configure your keyboard shortcuts in KMail (in ANY KDE application) is WAY more user-friendly than Gnome’s model which doesn’t let you do this without becoming root, searching Read more…

So, the Knotes conduit in Kpilot doesn’t work for me, and several others. After talking with Adriaan de Groot for a while yesterday, I’ve come to the following conclusions: Knotes is not the right application to be syncing a Palm’s memos with. It doesn’t know anything about categories, etc. KJots is close, but that’s still not right either. There is no correct memo editor for KDE yet, that is designed to cater to the things that a Palm’s MemoDB provides. So, after discussing these with Adriaan, I’m going to break out my coding lederhosen and create a Directory/Filesystem-based memofile conduit for KPilot so that I can start syncing my notes again. =:) My goals: Understand enough about KPilot’s internals to Read more…

So, I have just come out of a self-imposed exile from KDE (you remember them, right? the team that wrote KHTML–the HTML rendering engine that Apple uses?). A while ago, a friend of mine challenged my manhood by saying that Gnome had everything I wanted if only I would get used to it. I’d been using KDE as my Desktop environment previously to this exile for a good couple of years. The problem was that, then, the applications that I need/use most (web browser, PIM/e-mail application, IM client, IRC client) were VERY weak in KDE’s side of the court. KMail/KOrganizer/Kab/etc. just were not as polished and functional as their Gnome counterparts (Evolution, Gaim, etc.). So I used KDE as my Read more…

So this time, I took my little Ashleigh to the toy store to spend her gift card so graciously given her by her thoughtful Aunt and nephews (Hi Jen, Elijah, Nate!!). And… wouldn’t you know it… there sat that same, dejected, all-alone-looking instant photo booth again. So we punished it with our silliness. That is why it’s there, you know…. The big one here…

In case anyone else in this world gets this error message, having found themselves in the same position as me, wherein said individual is using a Linksys WRT54GS wireless router, has a Linux box behind it, running fetchmail from one’s house, through said Linksys router, and has purchased Linksys’s Parental Control feature to protect one’s home, children, self, wife, and pets…. Apparently “Your use of this service has been blocked by Artemis” is Linksys’s way of saying “hey, you’re not logged in, silly person.” Fetchmail on the other hand, tells it to you like this: fetchmail: Query status=3 (AUTHFAIL) fetchmail: Your use of this service has been blocked by Artemis. After an hour of some pleasant conversation with Linksys technical Read more…

This is the coolest thing since sliced mustard, just let me tell you!! =:) I spent more time trying to figure out how to do it than actually doing it. As it turns out, Fedora gives you a disk image for precisely this reason. It turned out like this then…. 1) Search Google for a good hour at least, trying to find any references to anyone else doing this. 2) Failing at #1, search for something obscure and find a link to a README for something else which mentions that the diskboot.img is intended to be used for USB thumb drives, etc., and that one should download it instead of boot.iso for this purpose and use dd to get it Read more…

It was and truly. It was my beautiful bride’s birthday today. So the kiddos and I surprised her with (among other things) what she wanted for her birthday… a new vacuum cleaner!!!! This to replace our classic model that we’ve been hanging on to for the last 5 years or so. You can tell it’s a classic, by the way, from the classic Sleek Wooden Support Structures that adorn its sides. They don’t sell ’em like that, you know, no sir. You have to custom-build them baybees!! Anyway, this new vacuum aquisition could not have come at a worse time, as I was just preparing to stain the custom wooden paneling a lovely dark cherry oak finish–you know, to complement Read more…