Picasa 3.5 on Linux

Since Google has dropped the ball on the Linux version of Picasa 3.5 I had to find my own way to install it.  The method from here did not work for me.  When I tried to install the windows version of Picasa 3.5 on my version of wine (1.1.30) it just hung and used up all of my memory. 

What I realized is that the 3.0 version of Picasa for linux that I already have installed runs on wine.  So I just used that version of wine to install the 3.5 version of picasa.  On my machine the binary is in /opt/google/picasa/3.0/wine/bin.  Using wine from there Picasa 3.5 installed without a hitch.

The biggest advantage of Picasa 3.5 is the facial recognition feature, it scans all of your photos, identifies the faces and lets you tag them with names.  The cool part is that once you have tagged a face the program attempts to find all the matching faces and automatically tag them for you.  It works pretty well, and it is a lot of fun to go through your photos to see who is there.

Now, if only I could get Netflix to work without Virtualbox...

All a twitter.

Awesome codebook. Now I can start twittering.

Almost Android

I just got a cool new cell phone.  No, not the iphone, the other cool new touchscreen cell phone.  Nope, not the Tmobile G1 either.  Give up?  I'll give you a hint, my carrier is Verizon.  Doesn't ring any bells does it?  That is because Verizon has a great network but for some reason they haven't jumped on either the iphone or android bandwagon.

My new phone is the xv6900.  It is an HTC touch stripped down for Verizon.  The important part is that it has a touch screen, is fairly small and lightweight and is pretty sweet.  The main problem is that it runs windows mobile.  When I use it I feel like I am stuck on the Island and we timetraveled to 1998.

To improve my lot in life I started searching for solutions, it turns out that other people have decided that this phone is a great canidate for Android (I agree), and they have put some work into porting it.  The site is here http://it029000.massey.ac.nz/vogue/.  I downloaded his latest work and put it on my micro sd.  After running haret.exe, my phone magically rebooted into Android.  I was so happy to see the green litte robot icon pulsating on my screen.  After that things went down hill.  First my phone would hang and I discoverd I needed to edit a defaults.txt file to set my radio version, so then I upgraded my phones firmware and tried again.  Now it works much better, but it is still not perfect.  The main drawback is that the dialer app craches, and it doesn't notify me of voicemail.

Android, even in a primitive state does show me one thing, how much better my phone would work.  Windows mobile is sluggish and feels outdated.  Android is fast and modern.  Why Verizon wouldn't jump on the opturnity is beyond me.

Psychedelic Ubuntu

I have been trying to get ABC.com to work in Firefox under wine on Ubuntu 9.04, here is what I get:

 

I don't know why it happens, but I have to reboot to return to normal.  It reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer smokes pot and then tries to shave.  He starts to bleed in rainbows.  My guess is that compiz doesn't play nice with the wine/firefox ABC.com media player.  I'll post updates as more information become avaliable.

Update: I discoverd that my suspicion is correct, the problem is with compiz.  If I disable visual effects then the problem goes away.  ABC.com still doesn't work in wine, but I don't get the psychedelic screen effect either.  Tie?

NX + Compiz = grey screen

I use NX in Ubuntu 8.10, but my normal settings (remote xterm) result in a grey screen. While I have not yet discovered the incantation to disable the compiz grey screen in Ubuntu, it turns out that there is a workaround: Disable X Agent encoding via NX Client -> Configure -> Desktop -> Settings. After that, no more grey screen of annoyance.

Also, you can run NX over a ssh tunnel:

1. $ ssh -L 2200:destination:22
   
2. In NX, set server to localhost, port to 2200
   

Top 7 reasons this list is only 5 items long

5. ADHD. I swear I have it. Just like all people my age who grew up with MTV and video games, I can't concentrate on one thing for more than 20 seconds.

4. I lack creativity. Seriously.

3. I realized halfway through this list that lists are really, really, really lame.

2. A thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters typing for a thousand days could only produce five semi-coherent sentences.

1. My boss came in and I had to go back to work.

Utterly immature

By this time tomorrow, America will know a bit more about what government we can expect for the next few years. Unfortunatly, I think that many important issues have not made headlines. Given the current economic situation, we are likely to have a recovery that any politician can take advantage of to extend that to 8 years. For that time, then, if Barack Obama is elected president:

We will have a president who has accomplished nothing notable as a senator.
We will have a president who is less experienced than a single term governor.
We will have a president who is the most left-wing senator in history.
We will have a president who has profited from Freddy Mac's collapse.
We will have a president who campaigned with illegal foreign funds.
We will have a president who befriends social and religious extremists.
We will have a president who plays by the worst Chicago rules.
We will have a president who has an "utterly immature" foreign policy.
We will have a president who will "Spread the Wealth Around".
We will have a president who sees America as "just downright mean".
We will have a president who thinks that rural Americans are "bitter [and] cling to guns or religion".
We will have a president who has no solution to the immigration problem.
We will have a president who has been wrong on every Iraq issue since the war started.
We will have a president whose supreme court will consider wealth redistribution.
We will have a president who aims to make electricity costs skyrocket.
We will have a president who will mortgage our future for more entitlements.
We will have a president who will continue to increase the country's debt.
We will have a president who will not stand by his promises.

Well, it could be worse.