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The Way of Open Source

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I Fought My Laptop and Won

January 26th 2012 00:14

The last three days were a battle I refused to lose, even when it looked like the problem was a hard drive with bad sectors. I was trying to do a new Linux install, and it took something like fifteen times to do it!

Oh, and I brag on my years on the Linux....humbling it was.

To make matters worse, I am not at all sure what did it in the end! So I will just relate the battle to you. It was a most epic battle. I learn from these things, so actually look forward to the times you must get it done, and run into that one challenging hurdle.

Last Friday I dug out my old Toshiba A205 Satellite, which I had thought to be broken, but happily discovered that the $90.00 "universal power supply" I had bought from Walmart was a piece of {...}. My boss has a similar Toshiba so I borrow his power supply, and viola it powers up.

And so I grab the latest copy of ubuntu, my favorite Linux operating system, after BlackBuntu, and did a nice clean install, and did some command line configuration to make swappiness run at 10 instead of 60 (bonus tip...bonus tip....). I got it all set up with my standard tools, ordered exactly how I like them, and then had a moment of over thinking.

So I grabbed the latest BlackBuntu edition, and installed it. Well, I tried to install it.

It would get to the end of the process and a dialog box appeared saying the disk is read only and maybe defective or hot.

Oh, well, erm...

After three tries I went back to ubuntu and now ditto the dialog!

Oh joy....

Then I walk upstairs and looked through my Linux collection and decided to try out CentOS 5.5

That installed smoothly, but I am now ubuntu-spoiled, not liking the older type setup, so it was back to trying to get BlackBuntu on there.

I insisted on my BlackBuntu!

Today while doing mundane work at the job I retried installing Blacky over and over, then gave up, deciding to get the ubuntu on the laptop.

It kind of installed the first try.

Second pass I upgraded it to the same version. Both times it went on, but would not boot for me. Not wanting to look at code or a text-only interface while working on my actual job, I did a third install, this time doing the whole thing.

It worked perfectly.

Now, I have to admit that I learned nothing here except that the first install was good, so why {...} with it, and sheer determination really can pay off. Now I will leave the install alone.

All my tools are on there, as well as Regnum Online, for that day when I want to just play.

I should have taken notes, but definitely will study on to find the answers as to why everything got weird there. Do I really have bad sectors on my hard drive, or was this a fluke?

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Some Practicle Tips for ADHD Programmers

January 25th 2012 23:54

This will probably be my last post on this subject, as I prefer to focus on things open source, but I did digress in the last post and feel I should add some pointers here.

The best I can do is just let you in on my own practices, and if you do not have this condition, read this post anyway as it helps anyone. You may even say, "Ya think?"

First and paramount for me is that if I cannot sit undisturbed for the block of time I need for a focus-intensive job, I wait. This is better than getting distracted and forgetting your place - losing your visual, and making that one-character mistake or forget to click something important.

I work in a flow that begins with solidifying a dynamic visual of all the parts of the whole on what task is at hand. This vision needs be unbroken while I work, and if so, I can work very fast and accurately, and hold a surprisingly detailed dynamic picture in my head.

Once I overheard a friend telling another friend his Dad could carve a chain out of a broom stick. I had the visual almost before he finished the statement. A meditation teacher had me start with visualizing a cup, then saying when I could hold that picture in my mind begin to turn it and examine different angles....but I was already drinking from it.

I have very strong visual skills, in other words, and I do not state this to brag, but do believe that this is common with ADHDers and also now that ANY programmer has good visual skills, anyway.

So, again, work when you can without being disturbed so you can keep the picture in your head.

I chuckle when I remember someone suggesting I write it down when I get interrupted so I remember it when I get back. Erm....

But actually, I have learned to ,return to the same place'. It still helps to work undisturbed.

Next advice is to keep your working space in PERFECT order! A cluttered desk and computer is an indicator of a cluttered and chaotic mind, in the first place. I cannot work in clutter. One day when working as a Xerox high-production printer tech, with a colleague, he got frustrated. He shrugs, and begins to put all his tools away. He very meticulously put every tool into its spot. I asked him what he was doing, first though assuming he was going to leave for a bit to collect himself. I was close, except he explained that he found it most helpful and calming to organize his tools when he got to a point like we were at trying to troubleshoot a problem with the machine.

I realized that I did this too, by keeping my jewelry bench and computer clean and organized at all times, as well as my desk. I have a small room with a chair and one desk that serves as my 'focus room'.

Next thing that I do is stay relaxed. Now here I may be playing certain kinds of music that tends to focus my mind. Andreas Vollenweider is a good example, or something else mellow.

Good habits help. Establish a set order of steps you perform for tasks you repeat. Also do the same for things not-so-regular. Sit and think some, getting that picture going.

If you actually do have ADHD, and are not taking medicine to help you, I do and am glad for it. Your choice there.

That's about it for today. Next blog I promise the subject will be back to the Way of Open Source!

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The ADD/ADHD Programmer

January 25th 2012 12:19

This is almost off topic for this blog, but I thought to go ahead and write it in way of encouragement for those like me, and also to try and clear up a misconception about people who are ADD/ADHD. I am one of them, by the way.

Now, back not too long ago, before I discovered my vein for computers, I was a jeweler for twelve years. My training was by Can Van Le of Art of Gold in Denver, Colorado, after he saw some of my homemade silver jewelry and offered to teach me. Can was a hard task-master, seeming impossible to please. I would hand him a piece, thinking this time it's perfect, and he would examine it. "Ooooo, I see wavy light", sometimes he would say, for example, holding the jewelry up and turning it in an illumination looking for just that. Then he would hand it back and tell me to finish it.

I was later most grateful for such a herd teacher, who at that time was a master jeweler from the Orient, where hand tools were the norm for jeweling.

Fast forward to about seven years, when I worked for Roger Goldsmith of Goldsmith's Custom Jewelry in Thornton, Co. While there, the synthetic gemstone called Moissanite came into existence. Short pitch is that it is three times brighter than a diamond, more durable and at a tenth of the cost. We decided to build a website.

I had also been working for Xerox and had been taking SkillSoft courses on computer technology. In a couple years we were selling Moissanite jewelry on line like popcorn, as Roger would describe the success. A couple more years and having a few sites rocking and rolling, the Goldsmiths both told me they were doing $500,000 dollars a year in sales!

Really, I digress, but not really, as the jewelry bench and the computer both have something to do with my point about ADD/ADHD workers.

You see, both are places where I sit and focused to the "Zen level" on my arts. You are discouraged from multi-tasking at these jobs, and as I saw while working at Level(3) Communications and Sun Microsystems in Broomfield, you do not bother a programmer when working!

The jewelry bench was my place of power, and still is as I have moved on to focusing on wax carving. The polishing compounds you use for jewelry are very bad for me, as I also suffer from asthma, so had to actually get away from the jewelry bench a few years to try and overcome mild silicosis.

Then I realized that the laptop is a better "jewelry bench" for me! It is most clean and you can carry it around with you. I decided to become a web master.

The computer is another place where I not only can, but must, "go Zen", tuning out my surroundings while I work. People with ADD/ADHD are known to be unusually good at things like this, and video games and music, etc. This is simply because, to try and explain it simply, our minds are like bright light, but it shines in every direction until we learn to focus it like a laser beam. If we learn this skill, we tend to be able to do so for much longer than most without the condition.

So, to me my greatest weakness is also my greatest strength.

Also, going by my observations of my youngest who is also ADD, we seem to have greater visualization ability when we focus. If you are familiar with someone with this condition, have you ever noticed they can sometimes seem to "go somewhere else"?

We do that. Television is to the outside observer a distraction for us, but to us something that captivates, and we "see" the program more deeply. Now, if you are trying to have a conversation with the person at the time, this can be confusing. Don't think you are being ignored, but know the distraction has "taken the mind away".

However, when someone like me, having the aptitude for coding, gets "taken away" by our work, this is a good thing.

One problem I have is trying to explain this to people I know. They think I am being obsessive. I demand a quiet environment with minimal distractions to be able to do my best work. Even the wrong ring tone on the office phone can "break the vision."

I am learning to deal with working in places where there is no control over the chaos. But I definitely prefer a room with no clutter, maximum order, clean and most importantly quiet.

Oh, my, I do go on today, and must close with a memory that just popped into my mind.

I use to play pinball. I was good. I would get the balls going so fast you could not see them, the collective rhythm of my playing the method of awareness. "Ticatoc-tak...takkatocbing.. ." The awareness would become so acute that I could put spin on the balls and make them do seemingly amazing things. Just physics in motion, man.

I would "pop" most machines many times, and when done something interesting happened. I one day realized that I tuned out my surroundings completely when playing at this level. When the last ball dropped and I stepped back, leaving pops on the machine for my friends, all the sounds and people in the game room would fade in.

I added this not to brag, but rather to try and explain to you that the "weakness" of a person with "ADD/ADHD" is also our greatest strength, if we learn to use it effectively. Then realize that your greatest strength, if you look at it, is probably your greatest weakness, too.

So, is ADD/ADHD a "sickness", or a different build of the brain? Maybe we just do not understand it?

Good day to you. I must go. I did it even now, and will be late if I do not frantically rush around. Go ahead and laugh. I do, but also am happy to be "ADD/ADHD".

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Open Source and Piracy - Know the Difference!

January 23rd 2012 18:07

I watched on the news a few months a segment stating that schools are now allowed to serve pizza because of the tomato sauce on it, considering a tomato to be a vegetable. Now, being somewhat of a scientific thinker, I immediately objected that biologically a tomato is a fruit - a large berry. Today I researched the thing for this blog entry and found that for culinary purposes a tomato is considered a vegetable, and that the United States Supreme Court ruled it such in the case of Nix v. Hedden.

The urge to look into this started with the current affair of the government going after what many think the open-source movement, and I do not know for fact they are not. Are they attacking free human knowledge, or piracy of proprietary software

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Adopting Your Own Puppy in a Pen

January 13th 2012 16:13

To begin I must note that when you do this, you will see many other distributions of Linux OS's available to set up on your pen drive. So, why not collect them? I have Puppy, Ubuntu and Blackbuntu so far, and that should cover my own needs. But, as promised in the previous blog, we will use Lucid Puppy today.

The process is most credibly simple. It will take you from ten minutes to longer, depending on your internet connection

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Puppy in a Pen

December 25th 2011 19:06

Puppy Linux is one of the smallest distributions of open-source Linux out there, and I have found that I really like using Lucid Puppy to do my website work. NOW, currently I will not carry a laptop around Galveston Island, where I live, as with the economy in the dump doing so would invite getting robbed. But, they use windows at my job at Behrens Southern Comfort Medical Suppliy, and my particular box is old and slow. For a Drupal CMS Specialist managing large ecommerce webs this just will not do! So I use Puppy linux on the same computer, which has all the tools on it I need, including a Lampp web server for doing major changes on one of the sites without doing so on the live web.
That box screams like and atacking eagle when it comes to speed. I pay absolutely nothing for the tools I use, meaning applications needed for everything including advanced graphics work.

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You Are Limited Only by What You Do Not Know!

December 23rd 2011 18:18

On a planet where money is asked for most every tool a professional needs to perform his or her work, it is good that some exceptions exist. For the webmasters, programmers and other such computer gurus sharing of code and knowledge for the common good is appreciated. I am an almost-fanatical supporter of the cause of open-source technology, and that is what this blog is about.

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January 2012

5 Posts

December 2011

2 Posts

Older Posts

7 Posts dating from December 2011

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