8-bit trip

Ubuntu Facepalm

I did something totally stupid yesterday afternoon. For those of you that saw the Tweet about it, here’s the full story.

A year or so ago after my new x64 monster was up and running I decided to take my old XP desktop with just 512MB of RAM and have it dual boot XP and Ubuntu. I kept XP running on that computer since I’d yet to figure out how to do a bunch of things in Ubuntu that I needed the computer to do. The three main items were using my D-Link DWA-130 WiFi N USB adapter, reading from and writing to my Sony PRS-500 eBook, and run my (15 year-old but still perfectly functional) HP ScanJet 4c SCSI scanner. Eventually, I accomplished all three of these tasks via ndiswrapper, Calibre, and xSane accordingly.

Having finally accomplished this I decided to sit down yesterday and start to move from a dual-boot to a single-boot Ubuntu desktop. The plan was to take the single 40GB drive and expand it via something like GParted to overwrite the XP installation. So, I made sure to copy all my documents off the XP side of things onto a backup drive on the network. I then realized that the desktop also had a 120GB secondary drive which I’d completely forgotten about since Ubuntu never saw it. So, I backed up that data too.

I then started looking at what software was left on the XP side of things and notice that this was the only computer I owned that would still run the Sony Reader software. Now, I’d pretty much replaced this software with Calibre, but Sony’s software was the only was to access the Sony eBook store. I don’t buy much at all from them but they occasionally have free eBooks that I’m interested in so I decided that this was software was worth keeping. (All my other computers are x64 and the Sony software won’t even install on x64 platforms.)

The new plan was to uninstall just about everything from XP and strip it down to the smallest possible footprint and then shrink the partition and have Ubuntu take over the rest of that drive and the secondary drive. So, off to Add/Remove Programs I went.

DIVX, uninstalled. Office, uninstalled. Codec packages, uninstalled. Games, uninstalled. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Ubuntu… What? Oh, right. You can also install Ubuntu as a Windows application via Wubi. This allows you to boot to Ubuntu but it’s still technically a Windows app that you can uninstall without having to deal with boot loaders and partitions. Well, I must have forgotten that and it’s taking up 7 gig of my 40 gig hard drive so… uninstalled.

Empty the recycle bin. Scandisk. Defrag. All done. Reboot. Select Ubuntu from boot menu and…

Winnt_root\System32\Hal.dll missing or corrupt:
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

Ok. Don’t panic. Let’s search and see if there’s something I can do about this. Well, according to Microsoft I need to repair XP. Try rebooting into XP. XP boots fine. XP isn’t the problem.

OK, let’s check the boot loader. Well, the entry for Ubuntu is pointing to c:\ubuntu\winboot\wubildr.mbr. But the ubuntu directory is now gone since I uninstalled the wubi-based Ubuntu installation. ARGH!!!

What I’d forgotten was the my Ubuntu installation was wubi-based all along. What' I’d uninstalled was the only Ubuntu installation on the computer. It was gone and it was completely my fault.

So, after feeling completely stupid through dinner I reinstalled Ubuntu off a downloaded .iso onto the secondary hard drive. Now I’ve got plenty of space and it still dual boots but with the grub boot loader instead of the Windows/wubi combination.

What did I loose? A lot of free eBooks and all the hand entered metadata that went along with them. So, nothing crucial except maybe for some of my geek pride.

JISC – Libraries of the Future

Via Connie Crosby

Wii Extreme Challenge

Social Media Revolution

Cory Doctorow interview on librarianship and media

The Buzz vs. The Buldge

Source:  Information is Beautiful

The Guild: Do You Wanna Date My Avatar

Writer’s Dens

I’ve always loved the Librarian’s Desks flickr group. Here’s a set of photos titled "Where I Write”, photos of SF & Fantasy authors in their writing environments.

Where I Write will be featured as eight pages in the 2009 Worldcon program guide. A much larger collection is being compiled into a book featuring Neil Gaiman, Lois McMaster Bujold, and many others along with interviews about their spaces.

Sign me up. This is a book I’ll be ordering as soon as its available.

Via Boing Boing

Merlin Mann on Doing Creative Work

I like listening to Merlin Mann. He’s always inspiring. Thing is, he inspires by smacking you in the face with the obvious. Find the time and listen to his talk on doing creative work recently posted on The Sound of Young America. This is Merlin at his best. (Contains adult language.)

The Sound of Young America

Google’s New Opt-Out Privacy Feature

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village

Colbert's Driving Tips Twitter Service

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Stephen's Driving Tips via Twitter Service
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Meryl Streep

James Boyle - The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind

I’m listening to the audio version of this right now and it’s brilliant. Here’s the video for your viewing pleasure.

In his new book The Public Domain, Professor James Boyle describes how our culture, science and economic welfare all depend on the delicate balance between those ideas that are controlled and those that are free, between intellectual property and the public domain —the realm of material that everyone is free to use and share without permission or fee

Intellectual property laws have a significant impact on many important areas of human endeavour, including scientific innovation, digital creativity, cultural access and free speech. And so Boyle argues that, just as every informed citizen needs to know at least something about the environment or civil rights, every citizen in the information age should also have an understanding of intellectual property law.

Is the public domain as vital to knowledge, innovation and culture as the realm of material protected by intellectual property rights? James Boyle thinks so and visits the RSA to call for a new movement to preserve it. If we continue to enclose the “commons of the mind”, Boyle argues, we will all be the poorer.

New sponsor

I’ve added a new sponsor to the site: Direct Opinions. They’ve worked with several different libraries in the past but are looking to get some more as customers. Pending any serious complaints their add will  be running in the sidebar of this blog for the next six months.

Give me one red button and a joystick!

The Ballad of G.I. Joe

The Ballad of G.I. Joe from Olivia Wilde

Killer review of Searching 2.0 in Library Journal

Professional Media
-- Library Journal, 7/23/2009 2:06:00 PM

Sauers, Michael. Searching 2.0. Neal-Schuman. 2009. c.200p. ISBN 978-1-55570-607-4. pap. $65.
Sauers (technology innovation librarian, Nebraska Library Commission; Using the Internet as a Reference Tool) puts his long experience as a technology trainer to good use here. The 2.0 in the title of course refers to the emergence of Web 2.0 and by extension the web services inherent in Library 2.0. Finding information using these new services requires new search techniques and perhaps a broader view of what searching means. Sauer outlines the central concepts of Web 2.0 as convergence, remixability, and participation. He quickly moves into the details of Web 2.0 services, including tagging and folksonomies; social bookmarking; Wikipedia; searching media on Flickr, YouTube, or Podscope; searching locally with mapping services; searching with "inside the book" services; OpenSearch plugins; searching web archives; desktop searching; and using data visualization while searching. He also covers Web 1.0 search engines Google, Microsoft Live, and Yahoo! However, he concentrates on advanced or specialized search features, presenting them in detailed step-by-step fashion, providing many examples and screenshots. Most chapters end with a list of exercises and a summary of the important points; there is also a companion web site (http://delicious.com/travelinlibrarian/searching2.0).  Searching 2.0 is the next best thing to attending a live presentation or workshop. Recommended for all librarians in need of a good grounding on new search capabilities in Web 2.0.—Robert Battenfeld, B. Davis Schwartz Memorial Lib., Long Island Univ., Brookville, NY

Olbermann: Sarah Palin rhetoric putting nation at risk

Before watching the video please read Sarah Palin’s “Statement on the Current Health Care Debate” posted on Facebook, 7 August 2009.

 

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

RIP John Hughes

Twitter Twacked

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Paul Krassner: "Who's to say what's obscene?"

Paul Krassner: Who's To Say What's Obscene? from DANGEROUS MINDS on Vimeo.
Via Boing Boing

CNR

Nailed 'Em - Library Crime

As funnily presented as this story is, this is exactly why I get so steamed whenever I hear “but you don’t pay taxes to our library.”

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Nailed 'Em - Library Crime
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Tasers

Foreign music day

For some reason lots music from other countries seems to be passing across my desktop today. Here’s two. One I immediately purchased from Amazon, the other, not. I’ll let you guess which is which.

Louisville Free Public Library needs your help

Reprinted from See Also…

Louisville Free Public Library needs your help
Wed 5 Aug 2009, 12:05 am

You may recall that back in May, I asked you to join me in buying books for the Louisville Free Public Libary (LFPL) as part of the “Libraries are Free But Books Aren’t” drive. It wasn’t that LFPL was terribly needy, it was just a way to help out a library by buying a bunch of book that they really wanted.

Now LFPL is in need. On Tuesday, Louisville was hit with a really ridiculous amount of rain. The Main Library was hit especially hard. I got most of my news about the flood from Greg Schwartz’s Twitter posts and Twitpics.

Photo from LouisvilleKy.gov. Click photo for full-size.

So a lot of those books we sent them in the spring are now covered in water and sewage. And so are the bookmobiles. And the mechanical equipment for HVAC. And the data center. And $50,000 worth of new computers. The initial estimate is $1 million in damage, but they must just be guessing at this point.

So it’s time to help them out again.

I have set up the email LSW.LFPL@google.com and linked it to my PayPal account. I intend to collect money at that address until September 1, at which point I’ll send a check in the name of the Library Society of the World to the LFPL Foundation. You can just send money to that email address using PayPal, or use the button below:

If you’d rather send a check, send it to the Library Society of the World Clubhouse, PO Box 7893, Colorado Springs CO 80933. Make the check payable to Steve Lawson.

Don’t worry about how much you can afford to donate. My own contribution will be small-ish, between $20 and $50.

But there are about 300 members of the LSW room on FriendFeed. There are close to 1,000 members of the LSW group on Linkedin. I would like to think we can raise at least $5,000 for LFPL by September 1. That’s only $17 per FriendFeed member, or $5 per Linkedin member.

For this to work, you have to trust me. I promise that every dime that comes through PayPal or check will go to LFPL. (PayPal takes a small cut if your donation is charged to your credit card (rather than your bank account) and if you don’t choose the option to pay those fees yourself, so it’s possible that I won’t get the full amount of your donation. I’ll only be able to donate the money I actually receive after PayPal fees.)

On September 1, I’ll total up what we have raised and send it to the library. If you would rather give money yourself instead of sending it to me, here is the address and phone number given in the Louisville Courier-Journal:

The Library Foundation
Attn: Flood
301 York St.
Louisville, KY 40203
(502) 574-1709

Five thousand dollars or more for Louisville Free Public Library by September 1. Think we can do it? I’ll keep you posted.

1884 – Steampunk Animated

Via io9

Don’t take data across the border

Yet another good reason for keep your portable data in the cloud.

Bobby McFerrin is a frickin genius

Please forget everything you ever remember about Don’t Worry, Be Happy then watch these videos.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Improvises A Cappella, Song Two of Two from World Science Festival on Vimeo.