Not even a week has passed since the Froyo source code dropped into AOSP, and a working build of CyanogenMod 6 has already been produced. Aside from needing proprietary bits to make it work fully, it looks to be smooth and functional.

In the video below, Chris Soyars, a developer working on CyanogenMod, shows off CM6 running on a T-Mobile G1 (HTC Dream).

Now, notice this is a test0 build. The ROM still has a way to go before it is even ready for a testing release, as the developers still need to merge in the CyanogenMod source code additions (Chris says in the video himself that what he is showing is pretty much vanilla AOSP 2.2).

Also, I should probably mention that because the Dream and Sapphire (MyTouch 3G) are very similar hardware-wise, MyTouch owners can rest knowing that this build works on their devices, too.

If you want to be kept in the loop with everything CyanogeMod, your best bet is to join the #CyanogenMod channel on the Freenode IRC network.

@cyanogen: Froyo just hit AOSP

And that’s how I knew.

The source code for Android 2.2 “Froyo” has just recently been released to the Android Open Source Project, meaning it is open to anyone to grab and do what they want with. What does this mean? Now the ROM developers (like Cyanogen) can slave away to give us Froyoy goodness on our devices (even my old and trusty HTC Dream, aka the T-Mobile G1).

Now, it is only a matter of time to see how long it takes for one of these developers to get a test build of a Froyo ROM ready for download, and when they do, it will surely be all over XDA (and not to mention, Twitter).

What am I looking forward to with Froyo? Mainly the new JIT for Dalvik. As I said before, I’m on my Dream, so it isn’t like I enjoy the awesome Snapdragon platform every other Android device these days runs. The JIT will be a welcome improvement to an already awesome phone. The second feature I’ve been waiting for is the “Chrome-to-Phone” feature, or the cloud notification system Google showed off at Google I/O. I’ll be able to select which applications I want from any computer, and they will automatically install themselves onto my phone. The same goes for music, I’ll never have to copy music files onto my SD card ever again. Similarly, Froyo lets me stream music from my computer, so I don’t need the music files on my device whatsoever.

So, I’m going to sit back and wait for the first Froyo ROM (that works with the Dream) to surface, and when that moment comes I can assure you I won’t be answering any emails or messages.

Back in February, I installed a modified Dalvik library that included a JIT onto my trusty T-Mobile G1 (HTC Dream). While any noticeable improvements are likely caused by a placebo effect, the benchmarks do not lie. Even on my G1, the oldest Android device released to the public, the JIT shaved a few seconds off the results of the BenchmarkPI application, ~3 seconds to be exact.

While this may not be overwhelmingly awesome just yet, I can not wait to see how the final JIT (that Google is working on and will release at Google I/O 2010) performs (Myriad is also working on a JIT, so maybe a little JIT showdown will take place sometime in the future?).

Anyways, enjoy these screen grabs of the BenchmarkPI application:

Without JIT

With JIT

So, want to try out the hack yourself? Head on over to the post on XDA (I recommend using the VMLIBS.zip method, so scroll down until you find it in the first post).

Installing graphics drivers can be a real pain on Linux. Luckily, things have gradually gotten simpler over time. If you are an Nvidia user running Linux (or in my case, a Linux user running Nvidia), then you are in luck. Installing the official Nvidia drivers is pretty simple.

NOTE: I’m running Ubuntu here on my desktop, but I’ll try to keep things as universal as possible.

Step 1. Download the Drivers

The easiest method to downloading the latest drivers is by following the directions on Nvidia’s own driver download page. If you are in the mood to try out beta or older versions of the drivers, check out this page.

Step 2. Kill the X Server

The Nvidia installer will complain if you try to install new drivers while the X server (a.k.a. all the graphic user interface stuff) is running. So, you’ll have to jump to a new session by hitting Ctrl+Alt+F1. This will bring you down to a text-only terminal. Login if it asks you to.

Now, GNOME (which uses gdm) users will usually enter this to stop the X Server:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

As for KDE (kdm) users:

sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop

Step 3. Start the Driver Installer

Navigate to the directory where the driver installer downloaded to. For me, this was /home/eddie/Downloads:

cd ~/Downloads

Now, you must have root permissions to install new drivers (because it ties itself in with the kernel), so make sure you either switch to the root user or use sudo (recommended) before running the installer:

sudo sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-195.36.15-pkg2.run

NOTE: Remember to use the name of the driver file you downloaded, not the one above.

Step 4. Follow the Installer’s Instructions

The installer should ask you a few questions as it installs the new drivers. It is usually safe (and recommended by myself) to say yes to all of the questions asked (install 32-bit OpenGL libraries, create a fresh Xorg.conf, etc.). After the questions, sit back and let the installer finish.

Step 5. Reboot and Enjoy

And now you are done! Reboot and enjoy the up-to-date drivers:

sudo reboot

Troubleshooting and How to Handle Errors

In this section, I will describe the methods I used to work around a few of the issues I have encountered when installing new drivers. (I will update this section whenever a new problem arises!)

1. “Provided install script failed”

If you run Ubuntu, then you will see this everytime you try to install a new driver. Just ignore it, the install script provided by the Ubuntu developers fails on purpose.

2. Error locating kernel source

If you are like me and have compiled your own custom kernel, this problem will probably affect you. If you do not run a custom kernel, and use the default, distribution provided kernel, then you probably do not the kernel headers installed. On Ubuntu, this is simple to fix:

sudo apt-get install kernel-source

But if you ARE on a custom kernel, or you have the correct kernel headers installed but it still cannot find them, append the –kernel-source-path option on to the installer command. Kernel headers are usually located in the /usr/src directory. In my case, the command I use to start the 195.36.15 driver installer is:

sudo sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-195.36.15-pkg2.run --kernel-source-path=/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-bfs311-idlesoft-desktop-amd64/

Once you know something, it’s hard to differentiate that concept from being an easily understandable one or one that requires teaching. I’m the resident computer geek in my school and family, so when people have a problem, they usually come to me.

Now, I am often plagued with writer’s block. This really is not a niche blog, so I can write about anything I please. However, when I try to write a post about fixing a problem, I cannot.

I have found the simple answer to this issue. The problems that I fix are so simple to me, I really do not give them a second thought. I could probably run through many steps to fix a problem and not even realize that the person I am helping is standing behind me, wondering what the heck I am doing to fix things.

This is a real shame, because there are so many issues out there that I have fixed and probably just as many people with those same issues. Worst of all, perhaps I come across the issue at a later date,  long past when I last encountered it. What if I happen to forget what I did to fix the problem?

From now on, I am going to try identifying which of my subconscious actions should be blogged about. Maybe this new plan of action of mine will help a few people.

My blog is relatively new, so I am always trying to get more visitors to spend some time here and read my blog posts. I have read tons of “How-tos” that detail steps to attract more visitors to my website. After making use of the powerful analytic tools I have available, one thing is clear to me: The best way to get traffic to your blog (or any website) is spreading the word.

Want to hear a story? Well, my mom’s friend recently started her own online store selling boutique bows, tutus, and other little girl hair accessories. When she first started out, she was hardly getting any hits on her site. Then, when she began interacting with communities via forums and social networking sites, people discovered her site and the rest was history.

Okay, so that wasn’t the most amazing story ever told, but it is true. It is an example of one website that got it’s start by word of mouth alone. I myself am an active member of many social networking sites and forums, and the I have gotten quite a few visits from links posted on those sites. Don’t be afraid to start a new thread in a forum asking people to check out one of your new blog posts, as long as you are abiding by the rules of those forums, of course. Also, if you are posting links to your site on forums and such, consider returning the favor by posting a link back to that same forum.

While I am primarily a Linux geek, I run Windows on my laptop and at school. In my lifetime, my Windows machines have almost never been infected any sort of virus, but I have still had my share of them. Nevertheless, there are quite a lot of them out there, but you may ask yourself why Windows users have so many viruses to worry about while users of other operating systems do not.

If you take a look at the usage share of various operating systems, there is no doubt that Windows commands the market. Now, put yourself in a blackhat hacker’s shoes. Would you rather target the operating system with many users, or few users?

Okay, so hopefully now you understand just why Windows is unfortunate enough to receive all those nasty viruses. Hopefully now it can be understood that poor coding is not always to blame. In fact, it is probably easier to program a virus for Linux-based operating systems, due to Linux being open source. This means that it’s source code (along with it’s flaws) is viewable by everyone, so a knowledgeable hacker would be able to spot security holes easily. Now, Linux being open source also means that those security holes are much more likely to be pointed out to the kernel developers, who are able to patch the flaws quickly. This goes for not just the Linux kernel, but all the libraries and applications written for Linux.

So next time you bash Windows for having so many viruses, think about the boat Microsoft is in right now.

Okay, so I have talked about WicketPixie 2.0 previously, mentioning all the cool stuff it would contain. Well, forget it all, because it is not happening. Not in 2.0, at least.

WicketPixie was my first real development project, and since then I have worked on numerous other projects, which have trained me to become less immature about the way I do things. My proudest project yet is also the most organized project I have ever created. For whatever reason, I never announced Hubroid, my Android app that allows you access GitHub via the GitHub API. But I will not announce it now, that is for another day. Now, I will explain the new development strategy for WicketPixie.

Previously, I packed as many features as possible into each WicketPixie version. All this did was cause messy code, infrequent (if any) releases, and bugs. Now, the plan is simple. Frequent, small version releases. Each one will contain a maximum of one or two new features. When real life is not too busy, hopefully a new version can be out every two weeks (school will do everything in its power to stop that, of course). This will allow us to focus on one or two things for each version, so we can be careful not to overlook any glitches or bugs. I also intend on shooting for a “bloat first, optimize later” technique, where the first few versions will bring new features, and then the few versions after that will tweak and optimize them.

So, what will the first release in the 2.0 series contain? Well, pretty much nothing. I intend to start fresh and simple. It will include the default template, and nothing else. No options, no social media features, just HTML, CSS, and images. I know it’s disappointing to hear, but all those features will be back shortly. (I hope)

Before I get to the heart of this post, I want to provide support for my idea:

“… themes link and use lots of internal WordPress functions, which make them linked under the GPL and subject to being a GPL-compatible license. If a theme (or a plugin) used no internal WP functions or APIs, then it could probably be considered independent, but that would be really really hard for a theme.”, Matt Mullenweg

I have known that themes and plugins are subject to being GPL-compatible for a long time now, and have even contemplated doing a post like this a long time ago. It was not until today, when I was bored out of my mind, when I decided to point out the blatant truth.
Themes like Thesis and Frugal charge for people to use the theme, and charge even more for support and the ability to use the theme on more than one site. But what is stopping you from sharing the theme with friends, installing it onto as many sites as you choose, or even (gasp) removing the attribution from the footer? To put it simply, nothing. Why hasn’t someone released the theme themselves to the public for all to use freely? Once again, the answer is: nothing.

I am a developer myself, so I understand that those theme developers need to make a living and want compensation for their hard work. It is completely fair and legal for them to do so. Some may charge excessively for the theme, but that is their choice. However, if they try to stop you from releasing the theme yourself, charging nothing, then that’s where the GPL steps in. By the terms of the GPL and as far as I know, all of the GPL-compatible licenses, you are free to distribute the theme’s either for free or for profit.

And now, a selection from DIYTheme’s (Author and Owner of the Thesis theme) Terms of Service:

* Member must not use any DIYthemes digital products in a manner not permitted by the terms of Member’s membership level, and must not distribute any DIYthemes digital products to third parties by any means, including but not limited to posting download links at public or private forums, websites, peer-to-peer networks, torrents, or email lists. DIYthemes reserves all rights with respect to its intellectual property, and all remedies, in law and in equity.
* Member agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit any portion of the Service, use of the Service, or access to the Service without the express written permission by DIYthemes.

So, based on those terms, the Thesis theme is conflicting with the GPL. (Fun fact: I managed to get the terms of service from GitHub, where some user has a repository that is, I’m guessing, his blog and it contains Thesis 1.6. FTW.)

So do not be scared by these terms, because the GPL says you can do whatever the heck you want with WordPress theme code. Of course, play nice and keep the original license up whenever you distribute (not that ToS though, it’s null and void in my book).

Also, if I am in error, please do not hesitate to tell me by emailing me at eddie [at] eringle [dot] net. I enjoy learning.

When I look through various web hosting sites, one thing is almost always made apparent is the fact that they offer cPanel as the hosting panel software. When Robin and I started thinking about offering web hosting services at Idlesoft, we also followed the crowd and decided to use cPanel.

Now, no business is successful when it first begins, and Idlesoft is no exception (in fact, we’re still in the red from past mistakes). After realizing that every month we only had a few dollars coming in, and 15 dollars going out to pay for the cPanel license, we knew it was important that we change. So, we setup Virtualmin along with Webmin, and we were ready to move on. Virtualmin offers many of the core features cPanel provides, plus a few extra features. Best of all, it’s free. In fact, there are many free or open source hosting panels out there, which means that there are that many more reasons why you should not use cPanel.

Now, this post was not meant to bash cPanel, or promote its alternatives. This post was written simply to make the point of not buying based on brand name. Not convinced? I’ll use a different example: clothing. Many teenagers today wear name brand clothing like American Eagle and Armani. As for myself, I go out to the nearest retail store and buy whatever is out on display. Instead of paying for the massive markup the brand brings, I get comfortable clothes at a price that is also comfortable for my wallet.

I hope you got my point, don’t waste money on cPanel, other software, or any other product because of it’s brand name.

So in my last WicketPixie-related post, I talked about replacing images with pure CSS. In this blog post, I’m going to practically tell you I will not be working on WicketPixie until further notice.

The backend for WicketPixie right now is just a mess. As I went through it trying to clean it up, I found even more tangled code that basically forced me to add more mess back in. I believe it to be impossible to edit the code in its current state and call it 2.0. Therefore, I am going to back out of WicketPixie development until I have a large amount of time to sit down and either do a rewrite or a major refactor.

Now, this move has one big advantage. WordPress 3.0 will be out soon. Basing WicketPixie 2.0 off of WordPress 3.0 would mean a fresh API to build off of. Also, WicketPixie must be modified in order for it to work with WordPress MU installs. This would not be the case with WordPress 3.0, as WordPress MU is being merged into the WordPress core at this very moment. This along with many other features will make it worthwhile to wait for 3.0′s release.

That’s all then, I can’t wait to start back up developing this awesome WordPress theme again.

Awhile back, I did a little review on a WordPress application for Android called wpToGo. It worked quite well, and I had no real problems with it.

So, as I browse the latest social apps added to the Android Market, one application by Automattic, Inc. caught my eye. WordPress for Android has been released, boys and gals. Just like with the other app review, I am starting this one via the app itself. It gives me a good amount of room to view what I am typing, so I haven’t found the need to switch over to the desktop yet. Speaking of posting, it comes with expected features like bolding, italicizing, linking, block-quoting, and adding pictures to posts. It also allows you to read comments made to your blog from your device, and also approve/disapprove/spam comments at the whim of your fingertip.

One really useful feature I am glad it has is comment notifications. Of course, I get those notifications via email, but having them come directly from the app is nice because I do not have to wait for the admin page to load before I can moderate the new comments.

Finally, you also have the option of viewing and editing pages, but I do not use those much, so it is just another tab for me.

After heading over to the WordPress for Android site and reading their recently posted “WordPress for Android 1.0 Released” article, I discovered why the UI and features felt so familiar. It turns out that the source code for wpToGo was used as the basis for WordPress for Android. This is just another beautiful thing about open-source code, it can be found and be opened up to a much broader audience than before. Just as a side note, wpToGo has been discontinued. Have no fear though, he has been working alongside the folks at Automattic on WordPress for Android for the past few months now.

This is version 1.0.0, so I really didn’t expect much from the get-go, but it’s off to a great start (no doubt due to the awesome features wpToGo provides). If your interested in beta testing cutting edge versions of WordPress for Android (I know I was), you can head on over to their forums at http://android.forums.wordpress.org/ and post a reply in the beta testing topic.

And for those that enjoy videos, here’s the official video of WordPress for Android created by the folks at Automattic:

As the blog posts recorded in my blog have begun to pile up, I have come to notice something. I find myself returning to old posts that walk-through how to do something. For example, one-time configuration changes when you first install Ubuntu or setting up the connection between your Ubuntu computer to your T-Mobile G1. Shame on me of course, I wrote those articles, so I should already know how to do those things by heart. Unfortunately, I am slow at memorizing, so after I return to these articles a few more times I believe I will have gotten the processes described in the posts down.

Anyways, when trying to come up with a blog post idea, write about a solution to a problem you found. Many times I was about to do this, but decided against it because I thought it was not worthwhile. I kick myself now, because there are times when that problem arises again, and I completely forget how I solved it the first time. I end up spending a long time on Google to find the solution again.

Even if the post is a short and simple one, it may prove invaluable to someone out there and possibly useful to yourself as well.

Yesterday, courtesy of UPS, my new solid-state drive (SSD) arrived. I was going to do a video unboxing, but decided not to because there really was not much to see. Anyways, I bought this SSD as an upgrade from my 250GB mechanical hard disk. Obviously, size was not the deciding factor here, speed was. I now use the SSD as my boot disk, and there is enough room to keep most of my data on it as well. The 250GB hard disk is now used for extra data space and my Windows disk (I don’t need the speed boost there, I rarely boot into it).

The OCZ Vertex Turbo 30GB drive has read speeds up to 240 Megabytes per second and write speeds up to 145 Megabytes per second. This is compared to my mechanical hard disk with read speeds of around 60 Megabytes per second and even slower write speeds. Now, what makes the Turbo different from the original Vertex series? The 64MB of cache used by the drive has been overclocked from 166MHz to 180MHz. This boost definitely provides a smoother ride for everyone.

I run Linux. Aside from that phrase just being ridiculously awesome, it also means that I use special utilities like sreadahead, which helps the operating system during boot, leading to faster boot times. The sreadahead utility also benefits from SSDs’ speeds. My system used to take around 50 seconds to boot, including BIOS. Now it boots in half the time. Now I do not have to be so grumpy when I need to reboot, because being the impatient geek I am, every second away from my desktop is agony.

I also noticed a performance boost during package updates. Ubuntu’s dpkg software processes and configures packages three times faster than it use to take. This means that now, my bottleneck is my internet connection, a measly 8Mbit downlink that is further cut in half by our old wireless hardware.

Physically, SSDs are unbelievable. I never thought I would see an internal data storage component to be so light while staying sturdy. I am confident that I could drop it a thousand times and it would retain all my data (I can not guarantee the floor will come out looking spotless, unfortunately).

That wraps up the short review of this awesome SSD. If you are interested, go ahead and get in on the SSD game yourself.

Lately, services have popped up like dot.tk and co.cc that offer free domain name services. Likewise, services such as 000webhost.com offer free web hosting. Many new bloggers have started using these services together. I personally have registered my domain name “eddieringle.com” through Gandi.net, and also host this blog through Idlesoft’s hosting service.

Let’s start with using free domains. These ultimately hurt your blog because as these services gain in popularity, it will also become known to most that you are using a free service, which could possibly make your blog feel “cheap.” It is better to find a good, quality domain that represents your blog or brand, and buy it up before someone else does. They are not that expensive, just a few dollars per year.

Using free hosting can also lead to a “cheapish” feel to your site as well. For example, most services handle 404 errors by redirecting a visitor to their site, causing you to lose a reader. They also can’t guarantee the best technology available like PHP or Ruby on Rails. If they do offer that software, it will most likely be limited. As far as blogging goes, using a free service may restrict you from using pretty URLs, leading to poor SEO and an even higher loss of potential readers.

Seriously, spend the extra few dollars to get quality and worthwhile services, your readers and your blog will thank you.

Note that I put “Strategies” in quotations up in the title, because Twitter was created to let people who are interested know what you are doing. In that case, a word like “style” or “method” would be more appropriate. I recently unfollowed almost everyone I was previously following on Twitter, because I had reevaluated my priorities and accepted Twitter’s true purpose as I described in the first sentence of this post. As I describe this decision, I will also point out a few “strategies” I have seen people use on Twitter.

1. The You-Scratch-My-Back-And-I’ll-Scratch-Yours Strategy – This seems to be the most common follow strategy I have seen on Twitter, and it’s the one I used pretty much since I joined Twitter. It is a reasonable method: if someone follows you, return the favor and follow them back. The good part of this strategy is that it is a win-win outcome for both users, as both get a new follower. The downside really will not become apparent until you have amassed a long list of people who you follow and who follow you back. This leads to saturation of your Twitter stream, which is means you will have a hard time finding the tweets important to you.
2. The Follow-Loads-Of-People-And-Then-Unfollow-Them-All Strategy – This is used by many people who take advantage of the people using the strategy above to get a large follower base, then use their new follower count to make it look as if they are marketing geniuses in order to sell a product or just to brag about their large follower base. My advice, don’t try this strategy, it just doesn’t make you look good.
3. The Follow-Who-You-Want-To-Follow Strategy A.K.A. Twitter’s Purpose – This is the strategy I recently switched to because as I said before, I previously used the first strategy but became annoyed by the difficulty of finding quality tweets in my Twitter stream. Of course, some people may be disappointed when they follow you but do not get followed back, but you will stay happy knowing that you followed the people you have because you are genuinely interested in the information they provide.

So maybe this is more of a protest to get people to rediscover the reason why Twitter was created. If that is what you want to think, fine with me. All I am doing is explaining why I unfollowed tons of people while providing my Twitter follow observations as well. By the way, if you are interested in what I have to say, follow me on Twitter.

Ah, it is Christmas Break at last, and that means it is time to get cracking on WicketPixie 2.0!

I decided not to release version 1.2. While it was working properly (I am running a Release Candidate on my blog right now), Chris, myself, and others agreed on the fact that it was getting cluttered and unorganized.

I started work on 2.0 awhile back, and I have already made some local changes waiting to be finished. But my primary goal is to make 2.0 as fast and clean as possible, so I am starting with the frontend theme.

The current design uses images for just about everything you see, the rounded frame, the topbar, the drop shadows, etc. The latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari all support CSS3‘s border-radius and box-shadow properties, which means lightweight CSS can be used in replace of bandwidth-heavy images. The final two major browsers, Opera and Internet Explorer, do not support CSS3 as of yet, so a different solution must be used. Luckily, WordPress includes the awesome jQuery JavaScript library, which is extendable through plugins. A few of those plugins allow for rounded borders and box shadows on browsers without the CSS support. I have not decided on one specifically, but I have got a few under consideration.

The reason why I want to get most of the images out of the design so badly is page load times. I ran two benchmarks on both this blog and the master branch of WicketPixie, and images consisted of about 7% of each site’s load time. That might not seem like much to some of you, but think of it this way: If your server is located in one part of the world, the latency between that server and your visitors can be really high, so we want to save all the bandwidth we can.

That’s it for now, hope you enjoyed this developer blog and I hope I can post another one soon.

We all need a bit of motivation every once and awhile. I, personally, have felt, at times, that my blog was going nowhere fast. I like to think of myself as an optimist, but I realized that I was not looking at my blog optimistically.

Here is a big tip: Never start a blog and simply say that you want thousands of visitors and thousands upon thousands of daily page views. Never do that, because that is not how it works. You have to work you’re way up, gradually.

So, you can have that as your big goal, but once you have set that big goal, do not pay attention to it. Instead, set many small, easily obtainable goals. For example, I decided recently that I want to average 5000 monthly page views. A few months ago, I reached that goal, but I did not move on. I was curious, so I waited for the next month, and it so happened that I did not get 5000 page views that month. So, I worked a little bit harder the following month (which was last month, November.) When the statistics came in, I still had not hit 5000 page views. Now, if I work just a little bit harder (and stop slacking off when it comes to post schedule,) I could probably hit 5000 monthly page views again.

Sure, this is not a “success story” sort of post, but that is not my point. I reached 5000 before, I can do it again. When the day comes that I find I have hit 5000 again, maybe I will start planning for my next goal (10000 monthly page views, anyone?) Hopefully you understand what I am saying. Countless times in my life I have set big goals only to see them fall apart in my face. I have learned to set smaller goals that you can work for without worrying about them too much. I hope you learn this as well, just not the hard way.

I like cutting edge stuff. I frequently check for updates for everything I use because I want to make sure I have the latest and greatest features (and not to mention bug fixes). However, most people are nervous when it comes to updates, especially testing updates before they are released as stable. Back when Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala was in it’s Alpha stages, I went ahead and began using it. Of course, I experienced the occasional glitch or bug, but for the most part it ran perfectly fine. The added bonus was the extremely frequent updates, which quenched my thirst for my cutting edge obsession.

Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx is the next release of Ubuntu due out in April 2010, but Lucid has not even reached it’s first Alpha (which is scheduled to land around December 10th), so why would anyone dare to try it now? Well, hopefully you know that Ubuntu is based on the Debian distribution of Linux. At the beginning of development for every new release, the Ubuntu repositories are synced up with the Debian repositories. So a few weeks ago when development on Lucid began, it was essentially the same as Debian (same packages anyway). Usually, the repositories are synced up with Debian’s unstable repositories, but the difference now is the fact that Lucid is an Long Term Support (LTS) release. Because of this, the Ubuntu repositories were instead synced up with Debian’s testing repositories (don’t believe me? This post says so). The testing repository is much more reliable than the unstable repository, and it’s obvious why the Ubuntu developers used it for an LTS release.

Before I used Ubuntu full-time, and after my introduction to Linux through SuSE, I used Debian. I always used the testing repositories, as they satisfied my need for the cutting edge while at the same time were stable enough for daily-use. While I haven’t switched over to Lucid yet (I am still going to wait for the first Alpha release, just to be safe), I am confident that it is already pretty stable. Of course, I do not recommend that Linux newbies make this sort of switch, because there is still a danger of possibly putting yourself in the position where you need to reinstall Ubuntu on your computer entirely.

I personally am excited for Lucid Lynx, how about you?

If you are like me, then good content is hard to come by. You could have writer’s block for a period of time, or just have no inspiration whatsoever at times. It is important to keep visitors happy with new and refreshing content, and not the same old posts they read during their last visit. But there are also periods where you have a few great ideas for blog posts, and you write them all and feel great about it (I’m in the middle of one of those periods right now).

So, when you do have all these posts lined up, don’t post them all at once. This can overwhelm your visitors and more importantly, leave you without good content in case of another writer’s block. Think about what that could do to your blog. If you lose the steady stream of visitors you worked so hard for, what was that work worth now? And if you are just awesome and rarely get writer’s block, what if you go on vacation and are unable to post to your blog, so you post them all at once before you leave?

The solution is careful planning and scheduling. Most blog platforms support post scheduling nowadays. I have already scheduled the two previous posts of mine, and this one was most likely scheduled as well.

You can even take it a step further and plan out when your posts should go live. Take a look at Google Analytics‘s Visitor Trending page (Visitors -> Visitor Trending -> Visits) and sort by Hour to see which hour of the day your visitors visit your blog the most. Once you’ve got a good idea, plan around that. I get most of my visitors late in the afternoon (3-4PM), so I might want to schedule a post to publish before then, maybe around lunchtime. Then, when my visitors check my blog after they’re run to McDonald’s (or wherever they decide to eat), they can sit down and read my post while those french fries digest.

In the end, it is up to you. If you really feel like it, post all of those good reads at once. Hopefully you are one of those people who do not experience the frequent writer’s block that I am plagued with. And if you still manually publish your posts, with tons of them waiting for their chance to shine, I recommend getting to know the scheduling feature of your blog platform.

With Black Friday upon us, I have taken a closer look at the financial side of this holiday season. Due to the economy, people just can not spend as much as previous years. Some will be lucky to get gifts of any sort, let alone get what they want. Now, you’re about to get some advice on spending your money wisely, from the viewpoint of a 15-year-old.

Know What You Are Buying

Usually this would come later in an article of this sort, but I feel that it is important to know what you are buying for someone before you make any plans. Was this person specific about a certain model? If so, what are the reviews like on that product? Is there a better brand or style that works better? You have to make sure that what you are buying is what you think you are buying.

Set Your Price

Do not be intimidated by the deals and the prices out there. You are in control of your wallet, so be responsible with it. Know your money, and set a price cap that won’t come back to haunt you later on. This price cap could be per item that you are buying, per person you are buying for, or any other way you can think of to divide up your overall holiday budget. You’ll be glad you did, and once you do it successfully one year, you will probably repeat the process the next year.

Hunt Down The Deals

Now this is the part that is most common in these types of posts, but it is an important one. Do not get lazy and buy it without shopping around first. Every year, my parents look through a giant stack of newspapers and keep their eyes open for good deals. This year they got a great deal on a gift for my grandparents, and just in case they happen to read this post, I won’t tell you what it was (it’s one of those “Do Not Blog-About ‘Til Christmas” sort of deals).

Aside from newspapers, you can find tons of savings on the web. There are many sites out there that allow you to compare prices between many different stores and web shops (PriceGrabber and Google Product Search are the two I use most often). Also keep in mind the vast collection of coupons out there. If you want to check for coupons on a certain product quickly, I recommend coupons.lockergnome.com.

Step Back, Double-Check Yourself

It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of the holidays. I’ve seen it happen personally, so much in fact that I  have made this my final tip. Before you hit ‘Submit’ on that order or visit the cashier, double-check everything in your cart and make sure that you 1) are positive this is what you meant to buy, 2) haven’t gone over the budget, 3) are positive that you have gotten the best deal. I can’t stress how important this double-check is and how important it is to stick to your plan.

Happy Holidays!

I hope my first big tip post helped you. Before I end this post, I want to make sure you always remember that it’s the thought that counts and hope you have a great holiday season!

When I am bored, sometimes I might head over to Ustream.tv to check out what people are streaming about. When I got my G1, part of me wanted an application that would allow me to at least view Ustream.tv streams on the go. Well, it appears like the broadcaster has been out for some time now, and the viewer has just now been released to the Android Market. I went ahead and tried both of them out, and was pleased with the quality of the streams and amazed at the smoothness of the broadcaster. After all, this is a mobile device we’re talking about here! I went ahead and recorded a YouTube video that quickly goes over the features of both applications. Excuse the blurriness, as the Flip Mino HD does not support any sort of Macro. And yes, I’m getting over a bug, which explains the cough.

Both applications are simple to use. The Broadcaster application allows you to first select whether you want to just record videos for your Ustream.tv account, or take it live. Once live, you have the option to enable a simple poll, which appears on viewers’ screens, handy for taking a quick survey. The Viewer is also pretty straightforward. You can choose between live streams, previously recorded videos, or your own videos, with the option to search through streams and videos as well. Once you select which stream/video you would like to play, it opens up full-screen on your Android device. While the smoothness of playback depends on your connection speed, the video is played at the same quality as it would be on your desktop.

I am really glad that Ustream.tv finally pushed both these applications out the door, as I will have one more thing to do whenever I get bored.

I have always been interested in efficiency and performance. So much, in fact, that when I finished installing three different trunk (latest source code) builds of Firefox (3.5.6, 3.6, and 3.7), I just had to compare their JavaScript performance with that of Chromium. I have heard that the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine got some performance boosts in 3.7, and wanted to find out for myself just how fast the engine was and if it was faster than Chromium’s V8 JavaScript engine. The defacto JavaScript benchmark seems to be the SunSpider test, so I went ahead and used that. I was about to use the V8 Benchmark Suite, but decided against it because it was more of a benchmark for the V8 developers when they are improving V8′s performance.

The following results show the time it took to complete the SunSpider tests +/- the 95% confidence interval.

Chromium (Build 33067): 1068.8ms +/- 17.8% [SunSpider Results]

Firefox 3.7a1pre Nightly: 1853.8ms +/- 15.3% [SunSpider Results]

Firefox 3.6b5pre Nightly: 5239.2ms +/- 2.8% [SunSpider Results]

Firefox 3.5.6pre Nightly: 5420.2ms +/- 15.7% [SunSpider Results]

Using SunSpider’s nifty comparision feature (and you can try it yourself with the links provided), I found that Chromium’s V8 engine was significantly faster than all of the TraceMonkey engines in all tests, except for the engine included in 3.7a1pre, where a few tests (mostly math related ones) were inconclusive.

Just for the heck of it, here’s a nice graph I made with Google Docs (click on it to see a bigger version):

It looks as if the speed gap between V8 and TraceMonkey is slowly closing. Of course, I expect nothing less from the open source community.

UPDATE: Mariano posted a comment asking about the computer specs and operating system, so here they are:

• AMD Athlon X2 5200+ (~2.7GHz)
• 6GB DDR2 800 RAM
• Asus EN9500GT TOP
• Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

Ever since I installed Ubuntu on my computer, I have had issues with Flash objects. Half of the time, I was unable to click on certain parts of Flash objects, like the video controls in some YouTube videos, for example. For the longest time, I thought that the problem was due to the fact that the 64-bit Adobe Flash plugin is in it’s alpha stages, but recently I discovered the real culprit.
It turns out, Compiz interferes with how the system gets information from my mouse, causing the failed clicks. Simple solution is to turn off Compiz, and the problem disappears.

For me, this came with a new problem. Gnome Do‘s Docky requires compositing in order to work, so without Compiz enabled, I was left without a dock (and I like my dock). As uninformed as I was, I didn’t know that Gnome’s own Metacity had a compositing manager bundled with it, so I enabled that and I saw my dock once more. Just to be safe, I tested that Flash objects still worked. They did.

So, how can you go about disabling Compiz and enabling Metacity’s compositing manager? Read on.

1. Click on System->Preferences->Appearance and then navigate to the Visual Effects tab.
2. Select ‘None’ and close the window.
3. Open up a terminal window and run the command:

gconf-editor

4. In the left tree pane, navigate to apps->metacity->general and find compositing_manager in the list on the right.
5. Enable the compositing_manager option and close the window.
6. Restart the X Server or just log off and log back for changes to take effect.

Sorry I haven’t posted lately, been busy with school and such. Nevertheless, the world has been developing without me, and Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala has been released today. I began using the early alphas back in late Spring/early Summer, and have personally witnessed 9.04 (Jaunty) change from an operating system with various issues *cough*pulseaudio*cough*, to a very polished and clean one. After discussing things over with my buddy in the Netherlands, Robin Vermeij, I have considered switching over to KDE. I recently upgraded my RAM from 2GB to 6GB, so memory usage is not much of a problem for me anymore. Anyway, Robin has cooked up two solutions that fix two annoying issues in Kubuntu:

While GTK theming has mostly been solved on Kubuntu, there are still a few issues.

Problem #1: Using kdesudo/gksudo/sudo themes still look ugly
Solution:

sudo apt-get install gtk-chtheme
kdesudo gtk-chtheme

and select qtcurve

Problem #2: Qtcurve’s font is much too big
Solution: Change the general font in systemsettings->appearance->fonts to something different, save, and then change it back. Repeat for `kdesudo systemsettings`.