Full Circle 16 is a must read

Full Circle, the independent Ubuntu magazine that Nanci or I talk about every month has put out yet another issue that has things that even showed me some thing I wasn’t aware of. What all is in this issue? How about

• Command and Conquer: Create and move files
• HowTo’s: Create your own Ubuntu (make your own customized LiveCD), the final part of the series on creating your own server, part 5 on their tutorial on using the GiMP Image Editor, and using GNOME-Look.org to change everything from wallpapers to themes to splash screens and screensavers and more.
• My Story: Out with the old, in with the new
• My Opinion: Ubuntu and Kubuntu Themes
• MOTU Interview: Jamie Strandboge
• Ubuntu Women by Elizabeth Bevilacqua, someone I post links to from time to time
• Top 5 Twitter Clients
• and even more

Even if you don’t usually read Full Circle you’ll miss out on some good stuff if you don’t get this month’s issue.

Peng’s links for Sunday, 31 August

Sorry about not posting yesterday. I did have some things to post but I ended up spending so much time in front of my computer watching the coverage of Gustav’s approach on WWL-TV from New Orleans that by the time I was ready to do something else I had to deal with other things.

• Tom Dryer: Ubuntu 8.10 Feature Freeze and Kernel Update. Tom has links to what’s going to be in Ubuntu Intrepid when it gets released, hopefully on 30 October. They also have a different Linux kernel than originally planned, but that’s a good thing. However the devs need people to help test the new kernel to find out what bugs are needing to be fixed. As soon as I find good instructions for using the new Intrepid kernel within Ubuntu Hardy I’ll definitely get it posted.
• Brandon Perry: ClamAV Live CD 2.0 is out in the wild. ClamAV is the standard anti-virus tool for most GNU/Linux distros, and for people who dual boot with Windows you may want to run it fairly often to make sure you haven’t picked up any Windows buglets. The LiveCD will let you scan your system without even having your Linux kernel booted up, letting you get an even better scan.

I hope everyone in the US has a great Labor Day tomorrow. I’m probably going to take the day off from blogging, especially with Gustav expected to hit our home town not just tomorrow, but also on the day before our mom’s birthday (Tuesday). No matter where you are, or where you live if you’re already on the road away from the Louisiana/Mississippi Gulf Coast, you are able to have a safe and fairly happy start to the new week and month.

Southern Louisiana gets ready for Gustav

It looks like Hurricane Gustav is going to make landfall right between where Katrine and Rita came ashore three years ago. Some mandatory evacuations will be called for later today, with St. Bernard Parish getting a mandatory evacuation later today and the threat arrest for violators of the curfew that will be implemented.

WWL-TV is running a special morning newscast this morning that is being streamed over the ‘net. Linux users can load this URI into VLC or your favorite streaming media player: http://www.wwltv.com/sharedcontent/video/makeASX.php?title=beloint_wwltv&live=1. That URI may change so visit the WWL home page to get updated links as needed. Open the link to the video page in Firefox and then select Tools > Page Info, then use the Media tab and look for the embedded media. The Links and Forms extension will be needed to get the Media tab for Firefox 3’s Page Info window. You can also look at the page source for the URI to paste into your media player.

If you have family and friends in southern Louisiana please encourage them to get out of the area, not waiting for the Contraflow to be opened or even for the evacuation for their area to be ordered. Gustav is already a Category 3 hurricane and is nothing to play around with, and there will be a lot of people getting out of the area. Beat the traffic by leaving now. I just saw on WWL that the Union Passenger Terminal in New Orleans already has people in line around the block so you do not want to wait if you can at all avoid it.

Updated 9:00a: Google Earth Blog is reporting that there is a single networking link you can use to follow the path of Gustav in Google Earth.

WTF??? Concast is imposing download limits

Chris Blizzard posted a story on Planet Mozilla last night that is sure to cause concern for Comcast high speed internet customers across the country. You may remember that the federal government slapped Comcast down for throttling back users who downloaded from torrents. The company has decided that it will place an overall 250GB/month download limit on its customers rather than limiting any one type of download.

The new limits, which will go into effect 1 October, actually won’t mean a lot for 99% of their customers, according to the cable company. They have posted some comparisons on their FAQ of what it will take to reach the new limit.

To reach 250 GB in a month, for example, a customer would have to do any of the following:

• Send 50 million emails (at 0.05 KB/email)
• Download 62,500 4 MB songs (at 4 MB/song)
• Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 GB/movie)
• Upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos (at 10 MB/photo)

The big problem is that people who use streaming video, such as watching videos on Amazon, Netflix or  the new WB.com website, will have a better shot at hitting the limit each month. And Chris points out that they didn’t have a calculation for YouTube and Hulu vids. As Cnet’s Josh Lowensohn writes, services like Carbonite and Mozy that let you backup your hard drives online will also help people reach their monthly bandwidth limit.

Comcast states that the first month you hit the limit you’ll be contacted by the company, but if it happens again within a six-month period they will loose their net connection completely for a calendar year.

I’ll admit when I first saw this story I was pretty ticked, especially in light of Comcast’s ad campaign for their faster high-speed connection, but as I looked into it more and discussed it with the roomies I realize we may not have that much to worry about. Unfortunately there’s a question on their FAQ about any usage monitoring tools that isn’t very helpful at all.

How does Comcast help its customers track their usage so they can avoide exceeding the limit?

There are many online tools customers can download and use to measure their consumption. Customers can find such tools by simply doing a Web search – for example, a search for “bandwidth meter” will provide some options. Customers using multiple PCs should just be aware that they will need to measure and combine their total monthly usage in order to identify the data usage for their entire account.

In other words, they’re just limiting your total downloads. Their subscribers are on their own to figure out how much they actually download each month.

Both of my roomies play MMORPGs, so we’re concerned about the amount of bandwidth that will get sucked up by Lord of the Rings Online. And of course with Ubuntu Intrepid currently in late beta stage it could affect my plans to help beta test the next release. Each update that gets downloaded for either LOTRO or Ubuntu, as well as for my roomies’ Windows computers, will add to our total bandwidth usage.

In the coming month the roomies will try to figure out how much bandwidth their MMOPRGs consume and see if it’s possible to download patches to one computer to share with the other. I, of course, will have to carefully watch my download of updates to Ubuntu Intrepid in the coming month. Since the cap goes into effect after September I suspect I’ll be grabbing the testing version of Intrepid once it leaves alpha stage and make a point of getting as up to date as possible before 1 October.

It almost makes us want to switch ISPs, but the only real alternative for us is Verizon DSL, and we’ve already taken our business elsewhere due to their rate increases, unreliable connection, and horrible customer service. In fact we left Verizon to switch to Comcast, so we may be up a certain creek with nary a paddle to navigate.

Happy Anniversary, New Orleans. I hope you don’t get to do it over again next week.

Today marks the three year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans and the Louisiana/Mississippi Gulf Coast. Unfortunately it looks like Hurricane Gustav may want to give the area a present of his own. Luckily for New Orleans residents still trying to recover from Katrina it now looks like Gustav’s eye will make landfall on the central Louisiana Gulf Coast.

Granted landfall isn’t expected until the wee hours of Tuesday morning and anything could happen between now and then. Plus, the cities on the eastern side of the storm could still get walloped pretty hard.

The Greater New Orleans area is putting into practice the lessons learned from Katrina and I’m seeing on the website for New Orleans CBS affiliate WWL that evacuation orders could come as early as tomorrow.

Our family back in New Orleans lives in an area of Jefferson Parish that escaped most of Katrina’s fury and will probably do fairly well with Gustav, although it sucks that my mom may be getting a present from the storm as she celebrates her birthday on Tuesday.

For the latest updates on Hurricane Gustav visit the websites for WWL-TV, the Times-Picayune newspaper, and WeatehrBug. WWL had streaming video of their coverage throughout Katrina and the days afterward, and I have no doubt that they’ll be streaming their coverage of Gustav as it gets closer.

I guess you can’t keep a good Frog down

Just under two years ago the upstart WB television network shut down after being on the air around 11 years. Led by non other than singing amphibian Michigan J. Frog, the network brought us such hits as The Wayans Bros., 7th Heaven, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it’s spinoff Angel, Firefly, Charmed, The Gilmore Girls, Smallville and The O.C. But low ratings doomed the WB and on 17 September the WB shut down in favor of The CW network, a blend of the WB and UPN networks.

Since the WB went off the air it’s parent corporation, Time Warner has had problems making a profit in our lean economic times and someone was smart enough to realize that there are fans that still want to see the old WB shows. The Warner Bros. Television Group still owned the rights to enough of their old shows that they have resurrected the old WB website into a new entertainment site featuring both their old shows and some new ones created specifically for the new website.

I have to say that it was nice to be able to turn on my computer this morning and watch one of my all-time favorite television episodes, “The Train Job” from Firefly. (I have to admit Peng got me stuck on the episode, especially with that classic entrance of the Serenity.) As time rolls on I’ll be at the site fairly often, enjoying more of my favorite shows online. I haven’t seen Michigan J. Frog on the site yet, but for many of us his spirit will still live on as long as The WB is around, even if it’s just online now.

Catch up with old friends on The WB.

MLB approves limited use of instant replay

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has finally agreed to approve instant replays in Major League Baseball, but only for disputed home runs. The general managers of the various MLB clubs actually approved it 25-5 last year, but there were delays getting it approved by the unions for the umpires and players.

Instant Replay will begin being available with the start of this weekend’s series for each team, with Minnesota visiting Oakland, the Angels hosting the Rangers and the Phillies starting their four game series against the Cubbies at Wrigley Field all of Thursday. All other teams will begin using the replays as of their games on Friday.

After this year’s World Series is over they will revisit the matter and see if they want to continue using it for the future, and in what form.

This would have been handy for a call back on 29 July when there was a question whether Casey Blake’s shot to the left field wall in the bottom of the sixth inning as a double or a home run. At least calls like that for the rest of this season will be a little easier to answer. I hope.

Peng’s links for Wednesday, 27 August

• Dave Townsend: Throwing in the Towel. The developer of the Nightly Tester Tools (NTT), Update Channel Selector and Tab Sidebar extensions for Firefox and Thunderbird has essentially ceased development on his extensions. He says NTT and Update Channel Selector will probably get an update or two each, but otherwise we shouldn’t look for any more updates to his extensions. I’m sorry to see him close up shop on his extensions. I use NTT and Update Channel Selector quite often, even if I don’t return to beta testing new versions of Firefox. You’ll definitely be missed, Dave, but best of luck on your current and future endeavors. If any add-on developer should be elected into the Mozilla Dev Hall of Fame on their first ballot, you do.
• Daniel Holbach: Second Ubuntu Developer Week! Just because it has Developers in the title doesn’t mean only tech-y types need attend. If you’re not sure there’s any way you can help develop Ubuntu Intrepid check out the list of things Daniel lists as being a part of the UDW. You may just find something you can participate in. I need to try to get back to helping with 5-A-Day again, and I may have to try to get in on the packaging sessions. There are a couple of things I wouldn’t mind learning how to package.
• Wladimir Palant: Don’t bother reporting your plugin issues to me. Wladimir is the developer of Adblock Plus, and he’s seeing a lot of bugs filed against various plugins for Firefox. There’s just one problem: There’s not a hell of a lot he can do about plugin issues with Adblock Plus. Luckily he points out the work of Adobe devs that have done to fix some annoying bugs. Unfortunately their bug fix caused some regressions. I hate when that happens.

I have a couple or so more things I want to post on, but since they’re not GUN/Linux/Ubuntu related I’ll post them separately.

Mozilla offers Firefox 3 as an update to Firefox 2 users

Last night Mozilla turned on the major update mechanism for Firefox 2.0.0.16 users to encourage them to accept an update to Firefox 3.0.1. You can accept it or decline the update for now if you want. If you say “Later” you’ll be asked again in 24 hours. You can select “Never” and they might ask again in “several weeks or moths” according to Mozilla’s Mike Beltzner on the Mozilla Developer Center.

Some add-ons still have not been updated to work with Firefox 3 yet, so if there’s an extension or theme that you simply can’t surf the web without you should check to see if it works with Firefox 3. Themes written for Firefox 2 especially need to be updated to work properly in Firefox 3.

Of course Ubuntu users (and possibly users of other Linux distributions)  won’t have to worry about this update notification if they’re running Firefox 2 from Ubuntu’s repositories, but if you installed it yourself, either manually or via a script, you may get this notification as well.

For more information check out Mike’s post about it, but I recommend you backup your Firefox user profile before accepting the update. Users have found that once Firefox 3 uses your profile it may not be usable by Firefox 2 again.

Peng’s links for Tuesday, 26 August

• Bob Lord: SSL session cookies vulnerable (SSL everywhere!). There’s a problem with session cookies that use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. As a result, your personal information, like your username and password, may be snagged by someone between your computer and the server you’re connecting to. Bob sheds some light on an article on Cnet that every user should read.
• Nick Ali: Ubuntu on NBC. It looks like our favorite GNU/Linux distribution could get some face time on NBC’s The Today Show tomorrow morning. I may need to get my DVR set up to record it, although I’m still ticked off at NBC’s blocking Linux users from being able to enjoy streaming coverage from the Beijing Olympics.

I have one other link I want to share, but it deserves a post all it’s own since it’s some pretty important information for Firefox users.