Kasperian Moving Parts

Tuesday April 15, 2008
by Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper
1 Comment

Getting Excited about KDE4 All Over Again

It started to hit me yesterday as I spent 3.5 hours in this year’s KDE Google Summer of Code mentor’s meeting (thanks again sebr!!). KDE4 just plain rocks, and it feels good to start getting excited about it again. And I don’t just mean KDE 4.0. Don’t get me wrong, KDE4.0 is a nice little release. It’s not perfect and there are some things that are irritating about it and keep me from using it as my main DE. But like Aaron has been saying over and over and over again, KDE4.0 is not KDE4. KDE4.0 is more of a preview of things to come, and what I see coming just plain kicks butt.

I am finally getting excited about our PIM space again, and that feels really, really good. KMail, KOrganizer, KPilot, and the rest of our PIM suite was what drew me to KDE in the 3.x series. (Well, that and quite honestly I find the intentional dumbing-down and lack of configurability of the other large, free DE irritating to the point of exhaustion.) But lately our PIM apps have suffered from lack of care and have started to look seriously unsexy compared with Thunderbird, Sunbird, and even *gasp* Evolution. But KDE4 gives us a chance to remedy that, in my mind, and looking at this year’s Summer of Code projects, I’m hoping we get some really nice improvements done. There’s a few really sweet ones that I’d love to see get accomplished: the Google Contacts/Calendar integration into Akonadi and thusly KDE PIM, the enhanced KMail view, and (nearest and dearest to my heart) getting KPilot fully functional, and rock solid for KDE4.

And going through the SOC-sorting meeting made me realize all over again how fantastic a community it is that we have in KDE. There’s a lot of respect and comaradarie and friendliness that I just don’t see in some other communities. Not to mention the quality of talented people that we have. PIM might have drawn me to KDE, but it’s the people and our awesome community that we have that has kept me. =:)

Anyway, I just had to say that it feels really, really good to be excited about KDE4 again. In my mind, it’s a really unique opportunity to do something fresh and new and fun and exciting again. It’s a chance to learn from past mistakes and do better. It’s a chance to take the fantastic functionality that we have and rethink how our users can best interact with it. It’s a chance to not be bound to the past and to not have to be stuck with the same old presentation layer we have just because we don’t want to make drastic changes to our applications.

As the pretty graphic says, KDE4 is truly a chance to be free. =:)

Monday April 14, 2008
by Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper
14 Comments

How To Drink Water

I know I need to drink more water, and after the recent health disturbances, I knew I had to get serious about it. But I also knew that unless I had something unique and stylish and cool, it would be a chore to me and I’ve no hope of being consistent on something that’s irritating. And I proved that by spending a couple of weeks just drinking out of whatever glass I grab in the morning. I could never remember how many 12 ounce glasses of water I’d taken at the end of the day and normal drinkware is just so… normal.

Enter the Sigg Lifestyle Loop Top Water Bottle that I found from a local EMS store. It has definite wow factor and fits nicely into the same category of my now must-have Moleskins as combining function with absolutely beautiful and unique form. And like the Moleskins, there’s quite a following of these Sigg Water Containing Devices. They’re made from a single piece of aluminum, have some kind of special lining that prevents leeching and keeps them taste/smell-neutral, and come in a variety of uber-cool designs and sizes. Oh… I also learned that drinking from plastic bottles is not a good idea. Here’s a blurb I found:

A safe, stylish alternative to plastic water bottles, Sigg water bottles are a great choice for transporting beverages on your daily commute or while backcountry hiking. This ultra-lightweight bottle is extruded from a single piece of aluminum and holds 1 liter of fluid (33.8 ounces). Designed to fit your on-the-go lifestyle, it comes with a loop top bottle cap, which can be secured via hook or caribiner clip to a backpack or daypack.

Sigg bottles are virtually unbreakable and are constructed with no seams, ensuring a long-lasting, leak-proof performance. They also feature Sigg’s proprietary baked-on inner liner, which is made from a non-toxic, water-based epoxy resin that exceeds FDA requirements for leaching (0.0 percent) and is independently tested to be taste- and scent-neutral. Every Sigg bottle is 100 percent recyclable at the end of its life, and is backed by a lifetime warranty.

About Sigg
It all started with a simple hiker’s bottle. Today, the SIGG bottle has acquired cult status. What happened is a success story that started in Biel, Switzerland in 1908. Küng, Sigg & Cie. manufactured leisure goods, kitchenware, and electrical appliances. The company relocated to Frauenfeld in 1916, where it helped pioneer the legendary tradition of Swiss quality. Since 1998, SIGG has concentrated on its core business: drinking bottles that deliver ultimate customer benefit.

But, most importantly for me, my Sigg bottle:

Looks really cool. Mine is ultra-shiney blue and sexy. I’m the envy of the water-consuming crowd!
Holds 1 Liter of water. This means that I only have to remember to fill it up twice a day and I’ve had my day’s fill of water.
Goes anywhere! The waterproof seal makes it simple to fill up and throw in my backpack for a day out and I don’t have to worry about it spilling. It also does a really nice job of keeping my cold water cold for a long time.
Is different. Which means I like it. Which means I keep using it. Which means I’m drinking much more water now. Which means I’m healthier, yay!

Anyone else out there in Geek land discovered these cool bottles yet?

Monday April 14, 2008
by Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper
7 Comments

Current Book List: Chess, Chess, Chess

Although I was never fortunate enough to take part of the chess club… anywhere… I have always loved the game intensely. Some of my fondest growing up memories are of me and my dad playing chess for long hours at a time. However, I’ve never really progressed much through the years, and haven’t taken the time to try to improve. Well, having gotten my clock cleaned a few times on FICS, I’ve decided it’s time to read a bit.

So I started out with the deprecatingly-titled Complete Idiot’s Guide to Chess. Definitely a good book and I recommend it as a good first read. Towards the end, the author recommended some good “next” books to read. I was painfully aware that I was completely ignorant about opening sequences, so I pre-ordered…
Modern Chess Openings, 15th Edition. This was highly touted–both by the author of my first book and by those who have reviewed it on Amazon. I’ll say this… It’s very complete and completely overwhelming. I don’t yet have a nice chess set, and don’t really have a way to look at the board layout in the midst of all of the notations, so it’s just not manageable for me… yet. I definitely feel that it’s a solid book to have and will keep looking at it as I get more used to reading algebraic notation and being able to hold a mental picture of the board layout while reading.
The next book I’m reading through is the REALLY cool Tal-Botvinnik, 1960. I actually bought it on a whim as I was buying MCO, since I wanted to spend enough for free shipping… =;) But MAN, it is SO cool! It’s very well-done technically and Tal does a very nice job of explaining each move of the matches in detail, which is helping me learn all the more. But what’s really cool is the inside look into Tal’s mind! Tal’s writing style is easy and flows well and I’m really enjoying the behind-the-scenes look at how he prepared for the epic battle and what was going on in his head throughout the process. Awesome!
And lastly, probably in frustration with my inability to really dive into MCO and grasp it just yet, I found Winning Chess Openings (Winning Chess – Everyman Chess) at the local Barnes and Noble. I was looking for something that had a lot more description (you know… in words!) of the opening sequences. Now, to be fair, the level of depth that Yasser is able to achieve in this book can’t possibly rival MCO. But I am already enjoying the easy style that Yasser writes in, and I’m looking forward to get some good understanding of some of the more important opening series by both white and black.

Hm, also, as an aside… I’m trying out Amazon’s little referral thingey and I’m pretty disappointed. I think what’s absolutely needed is a firefox plugin like the tinyurl-creating one. You know… right-click on an Amazon page or picture or something and have it generate the HTML for you. And PLEASE, Amazon, stop using javascript to generate URLs!!! Having to go back and forth to your widget-creating thingey is PAINFUL. If you can’t do it all inline from your web browser without switching tabs… well, it just stinks. Okay, bye.

Wednesday April 9, 2008
by Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper
3 Comments

KPilot Hackery of Sorts (or How To Sync Your Work’s Exchange Calendar To Your Palm, Part III)

It felt darned good to hack on KPilot just a wee bit today! Actually, it was less hacking on KPilot directly and more on some utility code that I’ve written that allows me to sync my work Exchange calendar into my personal calendar and subsequently to my Palm. I’ve blogged previously about this, but since my last post, I’ve switched employers (YAY!!!) and I now have to deal with Exchange 2007 OWA, with Forms-Based Authentication (FBA). FBA has managed to break the nifty little Ruby Exchange (RExchange) code that I’d been using, since RExchange doesn’t do FBA. So, I’ve gone back to Graham Cobb’s tremendously useful little OWASync package which has been updated to handle Exchange 2007’s schema and FBA, WOOT!

So, anyway, if you, like me, need to sync your Exchange calendar to your Palm, and you don’t want to have to keep your personal Calendar also in Exchange just for the privilege of being able to sync both work and personal calendars to your Palm, you might find some of this useful. The right answer for this, of course, is to get KDE PIM to be able to speak to Exchange, show it in kontact, allow 2-way manipulation of your Exchange calendar, and then get KPilot to know how to merge multiple calendars into 1 view and 2-way sync them. But that’s a whole lotta work. =:)

I’m actually thinking that it might be a long-term idea to have KPilot be able to sync to multiple calendars on its own. But, again, that’s a whole lotta work.

And what’s more… while it might not be the prettiest solution, what I have now works and does what I need it to:

Retrieve my calendar out of Exchange
Display my calendar in Kontact (or Sunbird–I just checked and it works fine too!) so I don’t have to deal with OWA for checking my calendar
Have my work calendar remind me of appointments via my Linux desktop
Sync my Exchange work calendar with my Treo

Monday April 7, 2008
by Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper
15 Comments

Looking for: Parental Controls Virtual Machine (or something)

Dear Lazyweb,

Having paid a decent amount of money yearly to Linksys for their nice little Parental Controls feature which ties in really well with my WRT54GS wireless router, I am surprised and dismayed to find that Linksys is no longer going to allow me to do so. They’re discontinuing their Parental Controls feature (a site-wide proxy, if you will) and have no replacement product. And having looked for the same service available from anyone/anywhere else, I am also shocked and dismayed to find that I can’t locate a viable replacement for said service.

So, dear reader, if you happen to know of a good product/service that allows multiple logins per site (home) and configurable levels of allow/blocking, and doesn’t cost more than $60 per annum, please tell me.

My next thought is in building out a Virtual Machine (dang I love VMware!) with Ubuntu CE installed and configured that I’d eventually publish on the virtual appliance site thingey. Maybe there’s someone who’s beaten me to this already?

TTFN.

Monday April 7, 2008
by Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper
12 Comments

Stream This!

Last in our series of “when will that Jason kid shut up?!?” is this short, little ditty wherein I extol the wonders of an ancient Linux file server in my basement with a 250GB drive, my shiny (SHINY!!!) new PS3, my PSP, and the nifty little Open Source project of MediaTomb.

Being out of the “being able to spend mad money on Geek toys” for a while (having a family will do that to ya), I was ill-prepared for this new-fangled UPnP thing. As I was setting up my (DANGED AWESOME!!!) PS3, I breezed by the UPnP settings (I don’t need no steenking directions!) with nary a second glance. However, after reading up on the PS3’s media streaming abilities a bit, I downloaded MediaTomb, installed it and configured it (took an hour, max, maybe), and before you know it, Bob’s your uncle and my PS3 was able to stream all of the movies, photos, and music that I’ve been keeping on my ancient Linux file server in the basement. SWEET MAMA!

To make things even just that little extra bit cooler, Sony’s Remote Play allows my and my wife’s PSPs to connect to the PS3 and stream movies, photos, and music anywhere in the house through the PS3. Now that just plain rocks! I mean, 4GB memory stick modules can hold a decent amount of stuff, but to be able to have 250GB of movies, photos, and music accessible from the PSP in your pocket is just darned cool!

Now all we hafta do is get UPnP client-ness into VideoLAN so I can finally be free of supporting iTunes on my darling bride’s Powerbook….

Monday April 7, 2008
by Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper
5 Comments

I Am More Geek Than You

Old Geek Receipt!

Originally uploaded by vanRijn

I finally broke down and bought an HP C5180 all-in-one printer/scanner/copier dealie. It’s a sweet little device, I must admit. Very Linux-friendly, comes network-ready, and now all of our computers at home can scan and print via network, out of the box.

So, said new scanner has enabled me to pull some of my geekly receipts of yesteryear and scan them in, thereby throwing the gauntlet down for this year’s “You Can’t Be Geekier Than Me” competition. As one item of proof, I offer this receipt from 1996, wherein yours truly laid down $279.07 for a state of the art, Megahertz 28.8 PCMCIA modem. Also of note is a receipt from January, 1996 with $138.03 for 1×32 72pin module for a whopping 4 megs of RAM! And then there’s the receipt with $588.50 for a 486dx33 with 4MB of RAM, a ginormous 100MB hard drive, and a 640×480 VGA monitor.

Come on. Let’s see what you’ve got. I dare ya. =;)

Monday April 7, 2008
by Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper
4 Comments

A New Sherrif In Town

Showdown As I might have mentioned previously, I love a good book. And so I was delighted to discover Ted Dekker’s books recently. I first read his “Skin” book which totally freaked me out and made me think that I couldn’t handle any more of his books. But I took a chance on Saint next and absolutely loved it. Looking for more, I found Showdown, which turns out to be the previous book in Dekker’s excellent Paradise series. The third book, Sinner, comes out soon and I’m totally looking forward to it.

So, excellent author: yes! But what really impressed me about Showdown was the intensity of the story that Dekker weaved and the underlying parallels that he was subtly building. It is a very different type of story, and I was tempted to put it down at first because it was a little graphic, bloody, and freaky. And I was so engrossed in the story that not only could I not put it down for hours at a time (and I LOVE books like that!), but I was completely unaware of the deeper story that he was telling until it hit me like a ton of bricks about 4 chapters from the end. I can’t recall the last time an author has been so good at his craft as to have that effect on me. Maybe not even since Arthur Conan Doyle’s tomes!

WOW!

I can’t really explain much more than that or I’ll give away the story, but if you’re looking for a good book and a good author, I can wholeheartedly recommend both in Ted Dekker’s Showdown.

Monday April 7, 2008
by Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper
5 Comments

Susan Cooper, Please Kick Someone’s Butt!

One of my favorite memories of all my growing-up years happened in my 7th grade. It centered around a very under-appreciated teacher of mine named Robin Avant who did something simple and inventive and refreshing and stirring with her class. I wish I knew how to contact her today because I can honestly say that she affected me in a deep, deep way and I’d love to thank her for it.

I know it’s hard to believe, dear reader, but I was a most uncomfortable geek in school at all levels. I didn’t fit in, to say the least. I was geek before geek was cool. =:) I was an avid reader, an Apple ][ hacker, and more socially inept than you’d ever want to admit possible. I grew up reading and passionately loving The Chronicles of Narnia, Sherlock Holmes, Edgar Allen Poe, The Hardy Boys, Choose Your Own Adventures, Robin Hood, The Lord of the Rings series, and anything else I could get my hands on. I survived middle school by hiding myself in the library whenever possible. Well, by the time you hit 7th grade, you’re pretty much expected to be past that stage of life, I guess. And for sure, teachers in school had far more important things to do than to read stories to you, right?

My 7th grade teacher, Ms. Robin Avant, didn’t buy that. And I fondly remember that at the end of our school day, she would have us all quiet down, lay our heads down if we wanted, relax, and she would read to us. And the story that she read to us was Over Sea, Under Stone, by Susan Cooper. And it was magical. In the chaotic world of junior high school filled with constantly watching your back and trying to fit in, here was a space of child-like peace and rest. We could stop trying to be more than we were and just enjoy the simple pleasure of having an incredibly good story read to us. I don’t know what the other students thought of this wild and crazy idea, but to me is was earth-shattering. And the book was so good and so powerful that it immediately consumed me. I read all 5 books in the Dark is Rising series, and then read them over and over again.

For this reason, Susan Cooper and her magical world in the Dark is Rising has always had an extra-special place in my heart and mind. I read through the whole series with my kids, and they absolutely loved them. And then I saw that they were making a movie from the series and I was thrilled. I had hopes of finally seeing all that I had imagined through the years, up on the big screen, as I’d been able to do with the LOTR movies(!).

And that’s where the title of this post comes in. I don’t blame myself for watching The Seeker movie, which claims to have been based on the second book in Susan Cooper’s series called “The Dark is Rising”. I had to see it. But I do wish that I would have read the reviews first. I wish I would have seen the outrage and shock and bitterness from the fans of the books. I think it would have prepared me better. As it was, I found myself getting increasingly angry and frustrated in watching this movie, such as I’ve never experienced before.

To say that The Seeker movie (and no, I won’t link to it *spit*) was stupid, pointless, horrible, wretched, the worst movie I’ve ever seen, a complete waste of time and money and the plastic it takes to create a DVD is a mind-boggling understatement. To say that The Seeker was based on The Dark is Rising is like saying that The Simpsons Movie was based on Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. And the most atrocious part of it all is that there was absolutely no reason for it. Susan Cooper’s books were every bit as magical and compelling as you’d ever ask for in a big-screen movie, just as they were. I don’t know whether to blame John Hodge for the piece of crap screenplay or David Cunningham for the utter abortion that made it to the screen, but whomever was responsible should never be allowed to take part in anything even slightly misconstrued as being creative again. I personally would love to see Susan Cooper come out with a statement publicly condemning the utter trashing of her writing that The Seeker has done. Or better, a lawsuit–by the fans with all proceeds going to Susan Cooper (this is America! you can sue anybody, right?).

But seriously, Susan, please do something.

As for me, I just ordered the boxed set of Susan Cooper’s EXCELLENT Dark is Rising series from Amazon and I’m going to enjoy them again the way that they should be–exactly as they were written. And if you’ve never read the series, I can highly recommend the books. Give them a good read-through and while you’re at it, don’t bother wasting your time with The Seeker.

Saturday April 5, 2008
by Jason 'vanRijn' Kasper
10 Comments

Remote-Working Geeks, Unite!

I just sent off an e-mail about some of the challenges and surprises that I’ve hit as a Remote-Working Geek and it occurred to me that not only have I not blogged as of late (I suck, what can I say–but I have a list of like 10 things I need to blog about), but that the contents of my e-mail were downright blog-worthy. Here it is, minor edits notwithstanding:

So… I’m not sure what your background is, but I came from 10+ years of in-corporate-office worker-ville. And there’s some things that I didn’t expect to be challenging that turned out to be, and there’s things that I didn’t even think of that have surprised me. And there’s things that you’d expect to be challenging that are. =:)

I live in MA, currently, so there’s a timezone difference of 3 hours with my team in CA. If you’re used to a routine of getting up and to work by 9, and being home by 6-ish every day, it throws things way off when there are times you need to talk to someone before you can go further with something and you can’t get a conversation going until 9 at night, EST. And that happens lots.

It’s also definitely a bummer when you know that if you were in-office with your team, you could easily walk into their cube/office and have a half-hour conversation that would get things all squared away and get you being productive again. I can’t tell you how much time I’ve wasted trying to construct e-mails (or IM conversations) to people that communicate clearly. It’s just maddening wasting 5 hours trying to get something resolved when if you were in-office, you’d have it nailed in a half hour.

After 10+ years of working in an office, there’s structure and physical demarcations that exist that keep your work life at work and your home life at home. Take driving or traveling to/from an office building away and it’s really hard to feel good about when you start work, when you end, and having time to transition between the two. I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s something that I never even thought of. So I find myself feeling much more stressed out about work than I ever did working in an office. And my “work mind” doesn’t shut off when I walk downstairs. I find myself thinking far more about work than I ever did working in-office. I’ve reasoned that I should drive around the neighborhood or something before I start work and when the clock says it’s time to quit, but the hacker side of my brain insists that I could get so much more work done if I didn’t do that. =:)

Another thing I never thought of… the importance of physical and visual feedback from your managers and peers. In an office setting, you get constant feedback through conversations, meetings, facial expressions, body language, etc., that help you gauge how you’re doing as an employee. You get little attaboy’s, etc., and it’s pretty easy to know what other people are thinking of you without even having to explicitly ask. That’s another one I never really thought about. Working at home, there’s none of that. You can only picture in your mind what the people are doing when you’re talking on a phone call. I’ve been in plenty of phone conferences, being one of the in-office folks, and I know what goes on when the guy on the other end of the line can’t see you. =:) It’s much more difficult to feel good about yourself as an employee when you don’t have that feedback.

Probably as a means of compensating for some of the above, I find myself feeling guilty for putting in the same hours that I would be putting in if I were physically in-office. I find myself putting in crazy-long hours some days, feeling like I need to leave no doubt about my being a good worker. And the frustrating thing is again that there’s no feedback loop that helps you feel good about your status as an employee, even having done that.

I also find myself completely unmotivated to do any Open Source work as of late, owing mostly to the above, which is a frustrating side effect that I hope will even out over time.

So… heh… Most of what I’ve described is a function of my personality (over the top type-A), my personal climate (married with 3 teenage children), my age and previous work experience, etc., etc. I don’t know enough fellow remote worker geeks to poll as to whether what I’ve described is common or if I’m just nuts. And maybe none of what I’ve said would apply to you. =:)

However (in big, bold, flashing neon letters), I have absolutely no doubts that I made the right move in coming to work for VMware. I absolutely LOVE the company, LOVE the technology, LOVE my team, LOVE the work I’m doing, and LOVE being able to work from home and see my wife and kiddos more. I have never seen a more friendly place to work nor a more brilliant set of people than my team at VMware. I love Linux (especially on the desktop) and I am truly excited to be finally able to get paid to write software that allows Linux on the desktop to continue to grow market share. And I mean that with absolute sincerity. I’m a KDE hacker by heart and I am thrilled about getting to learn C/C++ better than I’ve had a chance to before as part of my day-time job. I wouldn’t want to work anywhere other than where I am right now. And I’ve honestly never been happier about what I do for a living than right now–and that feels _really_ good. =:)

So… is there anyone else out there in Remote-Working Geekland that identifies with my thoughts here?