Cristina is a linux user

Originally uploaded by markuz

My wife knows (almost) nothing about computers, but she enjoy using Linux on her computer. She find it easier than Windows.
She also enjoy using my Linux t-shirts

This time I'm going to write how to make the Nokia Internet Stick CS-10 work on Linux. Two years ago I wrote about the Franklin CDU-680 which was a very good way to get online, until 5 days ago when we stop paying 800 Mexican Pesos (about $59 USD) to Iusacell.

Anyway, in the office bought this pretty "Internet Stick", and with a small googling I found that it was possible to make it run on Linux. In some blogs I read that you just need to umount the device using "eject", This is because this stick identifies itself as a "CD-ROM" and when you use "eject" it changes its behaviour and start acting like a modem.

But I have one problem, when I insert this device in my computer's usb port dmesg shows errors while reading the device. Then, it never gets mounted (the first step for umounting it :-)) and then it can't change the way it worked.

Googling a bit more, I found that we can use udev to avoid this connect-wait_for_recognition-umount-dial procedure. You just need to create this rule in /etc/udev/rules.d/90-nokia-zerocd.rules

As you can see, it depends on a program "nokia-testcd", it is just a simple bash script with this code:

Read More...

Christine small mode

Originally uploaded by markuz

This is Christine in small mode (Ctrl+d).

Christine

Originally uploaded by markuz

Tonight I have been working on the display widget. That part of christine that displays the title and lenght of the song you are playing. I have set up a background to make it look less simple.
I also put the control buttons, the volume control and the search entry (which is hided in this screenshot) in a toolbar.
What do you think about this small changes?

Please.. don't go to the movies for Ice Age 3 If you look the 1 and 2 its okay, even the second was "fine" with those opossums that made the movie a bit funny. This time there is nothing new. Please, don't go you will loose your money as I did.

After the movie I went to the midtown, again, I start reading the book La ofensiva del software Libre (Free for all) by Peter Wayner, interesting book that xbitcarry lend me, I just start and I don't want to give a final comment about the book but, for the first 50 pages I read, they seems to focus on Microsoft??. I mean, Its ok he have to mention it, but why start the book with the Microsoft antitrust issue... I don't get it, anyway, I will read the whole book.
I don't know why Free Software means "Against Microsoft" for many people, why? is Microsoft the only one that sells privative software? NO. Its true that microsoft is the major software vendor in the world and its operating system runs on most personal computers but, IMHO is not just because they used some mafious techniques. I think most people use Windows (and love it) just because they works for them, the same happends for those using Apple Mac OS X and those using any BSD and Linux flavour, if it works for you fine!.
With this, I remember many people I know, use the "Its because Windows is bad" statement to start advocating if favor of linux, they add the "Linux is great, it doesn't crash like Windows, it doesn't get viruses, it doesn't......." as if they where selling one of those reductive creams. And guess what, if you sell linux like that, then you will have the results as if you where selling those creams: An angry client because the system doesn't work.
As one of the articles of Joel Spolsky: Controlling Your Environment Makes You Happy if the user feels that the computer is not behaving the way they are used to, they will feel that the computer sucks, and if the computers sucks after you installed Linux, they will think that Linux suck. If you are advocating for Linux, please be honest, explain the pros and cons of Linux, the way it behaves and why your client (a customer, your mother, father, cousin, wife, kids, teacher, whatever) should think about using it and I remark the "think" word
In my family I'm the only that uses Linux just because I fell it have everything for me, My brother uses it as server for its business, my wife uses it in his computer because that computer was mine and I didn't change the OS, but its okay she likes Linux and by the time I'm writing this she didn't ask me to install Windows, but every often she ask me to teach her how to do something that she already know how to do in Windows. My mother and father uses windows, and for me it is okay. Everyone in my family know Linux and I have explained the good and cons of using Linux, obviously they made their choice. The same happens with Free Software, do the same,
Hey.. wait, Are you going to allow that your brother, mother and father use privative software?. Why not? again, it's something that they choose, then, the worse thing I can do if I'm a Free Software evangelist is try to impose the use of the Free Software, if I do that everyone will look the Free Software as the Evil Software that you don't want to use but have to use just because your brother is crazy and will get mad if you don't follow him (This happens in many religions too).
In summary:

• Microsoft and its products are not bad
• Linux is not the eighth marvel neither the Free Software is
• Live and let to live!. I mean, if it likes to you, good, if it doesn't it is good too.

You should use Gentoo Linux to help make it the most popular server operating system out there. Once it becomes the most popular server OS, it will be the obvious choice to run Skynet on. If Skynet is running Gentoo, it will spend most of its time recompiling itself, which will give the human race plenty of time to defeat it.
Taken from blog, jurgen dot ca.

Tonight I worked on the last.fm plugin, this time, to fetch the album cover of the current song's album. Check the video.


Christine and album covers from Marco Antonio on Vimeo.

Let me check my Address book :-P

Originally uploaded by markuz

I remember when I went to Villahermosa.... I went to see cristina, but in this picture I was looking Liliana's phone number. Anyone who knows me knows that my memory is not good with numbers, names or dates. In the picture is my first laptop "voladora" (because I bought it in Papantla, Veracruz).

Giving love to christine, originally uploaded by markuz.

This is my desktop testing some changes I have done to christine in this night. Most of them code cleaning and some harmless optimizations.

Update: I have made a screencast, you can download it


here

Update: Maybe you want to see the full resolution video