These Things Matter To Me

The first two days of OSCON are dedicated to long tutorial sessions lasting at half a day each. Even though it’s total information overload, there’s definitely a less wacky atmosphere than later in the week, and less topics covered per-hour.

I checked out Javascript Bootcamp. Amy Hoy gave a super comprehensive overview of Javascript. It wasn’t so much a tutorial on how to construct Javascript, but more of a deconstruction that catogorized almost any Javascript part you could think of. Her slides will be on her blog at some point. There was a part of me that would have dug it if she “tied it all together” in a different way, but she was extremely familiar with Javascript, and great at relating it to other languages. So it was cool get such specific definitions of everything.

Also: props to Amy for great design on her slides. Everything… from the font size, to the colors, made them the easiest to read slides I’ve seen so far at this conference.

The other tutorial from Day One I checked out was Damian Conway’s Mastering Vim. Damian is a very engaging speaker, so any talk by him is going to be fun. But he gave a great “tricks” style talk about vim which really spoke to how people use editors, instead of just an item-by-item list. For now slides don’t seem to be digitally available

TECHNORATI TAGS: oscon, oscon2006, javascript, conference, Amy Hoy, Damian Conway

• Windows Server virtualization to support XEN Virtual machines (a vaporware match made in heaven )
• dual proc vs. dualcore
• more meetings strategies. OK. You’re obligated to attend. Now what? (37 signals? critical of meetings? whuh?)
• Why Reiser4 is not in the Linux kernel
• Slashboinged (measuring and surviving popularity. le sigh)

From an interview with Sun CIO Bill Vass… I’m quoting an interesting part on how he differentiates between different server architectures, and the best application for them:

Because each server is capable of running the same applications, it can be confusing how to choose one over the other. Since I really like cars, I think of the servers in terms of capacity and speed. For mass transit– such as an application, portal, Web, directory or proxy server–you might need as many as 32 threads at once. That’s what the CoolThreads server offers. It is like a bus.

When you need to share memory quickly, in a large database or an ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning] system, you’d use an UltraSparc. There aren’t as many threads, but it shares memory well from chip to chip, and it is pretty fast. I think of it like a BMW M5 sedan that can carry a whole family, with room for luggage.

Finally, the x64 Opteron–AMD’s chip–runs very fast on two- and four-threaded applications. That’s the two-seater Ferrari.

People are used to the idea of a general-purpose chip to do everything in the IT space. We’re working on an application profiler where CIOs can enter information and generate a recommendation for how much memory-sharing they need and which chip is best for any given application.

• OSCON July 24-28, 2006 aka O’Reilly Open Source Conference, aka Grab That Outlet
• FOSCON II: the Ruby Rodeo (free talks around Portland happening the same week as OSCON, often during OSCON off-hours)
• OSCAMP (mentioned this earlier. happens same week as OSCON, with the blessing of O’Reilly, overlapping hours with OSCON)
• Portland Code Camp v2.0
  
• Geek Fair 2006, Saturday July 15th. brought to you by Free Geek (yes, it just happened. I’m trying to establish a trend here, people. sheesh)
• Panic Software’s Cabel on The (Portland) Apple Store That Wasn’t

Starting in August, there’ll be regular biweekly, real-time IRC-based Ubuntu classes. Topics will range from newbie (email clients), to advanced (kernel stuff, encryption). To see the full schedule, visit the Ubuntu wiki page:

• Ubuntu classroom

• Skype protocol reverse engineerd ( allow me to quote Nelson when I say: Ha, Haaaaaaaaa)
• Jeff Waugh is leaving (Ubuntu-centric) Canonical ( Jeff’s a great speaker and Ubuntu/ GNOME advocate. This change doesn’t have to mean anything gnarly. Why such a cryptic post?)
• Ubuntu Studio (a wiki all about/ for musicians using Ubuntu)

• VMware Server is out of beta, still free
• like, totally understand /etc/fstab! (did i link to this already? i refer to it a lot. it’s updated regularly)
• Barebones Windows version for older hardware (they call it “Windows Fundamentals” More like Windows Awesomentals)
• Dell wants to simplify its pricing (it’s true… so many coupon codes, and different prices depending on where you link to… first the blog, now this. it’s like Extreme Makeover week for Dell!)
• Mofo cooked an egg on his Macbook
• Vanilla Forums maker wonders aloud if open source can work for him (i love Vanilla forums, and think Mark is great. But the question he’s asking has been answered many times already… Tim O’Reilly says, “obscurity is a bigger threat than piracy.” My variation: “obscurity is a bigger threat than competition!”)

More like the quick brown awesome.

via Ubuntu Blog

...$sudo apt-get install ttf-ubuntu-title
will install the font and make it available to GIMP, OpenOffice and everywhere else that you can use fonts.

If you only want the font, to install it on another OS or such, you can get it here. The font is an OpenType Font, which installs just like a TrueType font. The font is licensed using the LGPL…

TECHNORATI TAGS: font, free, lgpl, sysadmin, ubuntu, linux, desgin, resource