CRT19N GPRS/GSM/GPS Watch Tracker

Recently I purchased a CRT19N GPRS/GSM/GPS Watch Tracker from Daily Steals. Overall I'm pretty happy with the product, This device has a built in cell phone and can call two pre-programmed numbers. You can also send an SMS text to it and receive back a latitude and longitude along with a link for google maps. You have to purchase your own SIM card for the device along with a plan.

 The device has one bug, however. You can't set the timezone and it comes preprogrammed for Beijing time so it's useless as a watch.

Screencasts in Ubuntu

This one took me a while but I finally found a software stack that works well for screen casts in Ubuntu 10.10 and YouTube. recordmydesktop is great for capturing the full screen, a single screen, or a small portion of your display. The other product is Winff for converting the ogv file to an avi. This was actually the most painful part of the process as many products came and went but still exist in the wild world of the Internet.  The stack works really well. Just record, convert, and upload the YouTube.

Both are available from the Ubuntu repository via the Package Manager.

Below is a screen cast of me actually type this blog. It records audio from any microphone you have configure and thus you'll here me typing in the first part of the video. 

And here's a screen cast of using WinFF to convert OGV to an AVI file. You can view this file below.

Good luck and may the Force be with you.

Problems with ATT Uverse and Ubuntu

I recently switched from Time Warner Cable to ATT U-verse. I'm very happy with the picture quality on my TV but the Internet connection on my Ubuntu 10.10 system was very slow even though speed tests said I was getting the band width I paid for. The problem turned out to be the DNS. For whatever reason the DNS lookup was very slow using the new service. I switched to Google public DNS and everything worked fine.

To fix the problem I went to System->Preferences->Network Connections and selected Auto eth0 from the list and then the Edit button.  A window will pop up wiht 4 tabs. Select the IPv4 Settings tab. A drop down list will show Automatic DHCP. Change the drop down to Automatic (DHCP) addresses only and add your favorite DNS addresses to DNS Servers. I used 8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4 for the addresses.

Your final window should look something like this.

This fixed my problem instantly.

Political Zen

To all my liberal friends: divided government is good. It encourages debate and compromise on issues that should not be decided along party lines.  There is a role for government but we cannot kill the private sector in order to redistribute wealth or grant government control to every sector of every life.  Ignore people who hate others or call them idiot's because they disagree with a point of view. These people are political poison. 

You are not the center of the nation.

To all my conservative friends: you did not take the senate due to purest ideology thrown behind less-than-electable candidates. There is a role for government in our lives to help others. We need your voice to help determine the most cost effective way to do that but to make a positive change you have to be open to change. Don't shut out liberal ideas just because a loud person on the radio or web says to.

You are not the center of the nation.

To the sane center: hold the new guys responsible for their actions. Make them return sanity to the national government through tactics used by the looney left and purest right. Pay attention. Get involved. Write emails. Try to tap down the fringe in either direction and disavow the talking heads and loud people.

Pay more attention to the body politic and listen to different view points but always use common sense about human nature to shape your decisions. Ignore numbers thrown at you by either side. They are lies wrapped in statistics. Use what you see around you to make your decisions.

If an elite takes a point of view, first ask yourself "what's in it for them." The political elites will use you to further their own ends. The media elites seek to influence you to make advertising dollars and exert a slightly twisted control over the political process.

DO NOT get caught up in a cult of personality. That leads to the suspension of critical thought and the shutting out of other view points.

When the presidential election comes around, cross party lines vote against the extreme elements of either party that seem to be doing well.

Thus endeth my political thought for the day.

Cheers,
Keith

Google And Linux

I am happy to report that Google now supports Linux for the Chrome browser. It was a painless install but I had to close Firefox in order for Chrome to import my settings.  Now I'm off to see if the Goggle Web Toolkit actually works with Linux now.