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Downloads Broken in Firefox
For a while Firefox downloads had been broken for me. The download dialog was always empty and most things I tried to save didn't end up saved, although some did - weird! It didn't appear to be due to any plugins and a bit of googling suggested something may be screwed up with my profile. However I didn't want to delete my profile.
Some more googling and I came up with Ubuntu bug #29102. Unfortunately it's a bit vague but one of the suggestions to delete the download.rdf file in your profile (leaving everything else as-is) worked for me. Yay!
For reference, this is Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty) and Firefox 2.0.0.8, although this has been going on for a bit so at least one prior revision of Firefox and maybe more.
PAWS website re-launched
We re-launched the PAWS website last week. Even though PAWS has been around for quite a few years the website has been sorely lacking.
PAWS is a Perth based not-for-profit organisation dedicated to People and Animal welfare and supporting the vegetarian and vegan community. They have a resource center in Northbridge where you can learn more about what really happens to animals in our society as well as a cruelty free store with vegan food and other items are available. They've just launched their catering service for events too - so last week saw them at the Pride Festival serving up awesome vegan meals which turned out to be very popular.
For those new to a vegetarian or vegan diet, or just curious, the website will be home to a growing set of restaurant reviews, recipes, and links to other like resources. To be announced soon will be a weekly PAWS meal night open to anyone to come along and eat by donation.
Of course the website runs on a Linux host and built on top of my Perl web
framework. I just need some more time or help to convert some of their
Internet cafe terminals to Linux too 
. Let me know if you're
close to Northbridge and want to help out!
Greenhouse Gases - What Can I Do?
When it comes to global scale problems you can often feel alienated - what can I do as an individual? Despite the Australian Government being extremely slow to move on this issue I'm happy to say that as an individual you can do a lot. In fact you can probably reduce your own greenhouse gas emissions by 50% fairly easily from today.
- The single most effective thing you can do is significantly reduce animal based food, especially meat. Changing to a vegetarian or vegan diet is even better. Why - it's an energy cycle thing and growing animals is a very energy intensive (and water intensive) exercise. The UN reports that rearing cattle produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars. Plenty more on this issue - just search.
- Next is signing up for 100% green power. You don't have to wait, sign up now or switch to a provider that supports the National GreenPower Accreditation Program. Yes, it'll cost marginally more but can be offset with some smart electricity use reduction such as CFL lights, turning things off, solar hot water systems, etc...
- Drive less. This one will save money too. Walk to the local shops and even the major supermarkets may be within a 20min walk. You'll be surprised to find walking there and back (plus shopping) will be a similar round trip time over driving cause you don't have to worry about parking and traffic. Commute to work or school by bus, train, or bicycle.
It's great to see Russell Coker on Planet Linux Australia researching on the environment and sharing his findings with the wider community. At least I find them very interesting.
There was a great 6 episode series called the Carbon Cops on ABC a short while ago. I think it's finished now but visit their website for some good information and tips on reducing your greenhouse gas footprint.
Now serving application/xhtml+xml
I've updated my site content and code to deliver pages using the
"application/xhtml+xml" MIME type for browsers that support it. In the process
quite a few things broke and I think I've fixed them all, hopefully
.
A benefit to me, as the designer and responsible for content, if the page is invalid XML (XHTML) then my browser will spit out an error. So no need to run the w3 validator for the most part.
Ubuntu Linux on ASUS M2NPV-VM
I've recently bought myself a desktop computer and wanted something super cheap with low power usage. A laptop would have been a better choice power wise but certainly no where near as cheap. The ASUS M2NPV-VM is an all-in-one motherboard supporting AMD processors and includes on-board video (GeForce 6150), and here's the diff between most of these types of motherboards, including DVI out! In addition it's got the usual USB, Firewire, GigE networking, and up to 8GB of RAM. I bought the lower power 65W AMD x2 4800 (2.5Ghz) CPU although I run it at 1GHz since everything seems pretty much just as responsive, including the odd game of quake3 (on linux).
I don't have a power meter to measure actual power draw but when I get one I'll post up the results.
The great thing with this new system is that Ubuntu Feisty just works straight out of the box. No messing around at all except to switch to the binary NVidia drivers.
Suspend to RAM even works and I can resume OK. This is a little flakey though, but probably due to the NVidia binary drivers. Sometimes the screen will be messed up and switching to VT and back won't help.
If you take a look at the manual it doesn't explicitly say up to what resolution the DVI out supports (it only mentions 1920x1200 for VGA). I can happily say it does support 1920x1200 on DVI too which is a big relief otherwise I'd need another vid card (and extra power draw).
Update 2007-08-16: looks like there are some other issues with suspend to RAM. On resuming one CPU core is no longer responsive to powernow, i.e. it's set to maximum speed and you can't change it. I use the system all day and just power down at night so not a big issue for me for the moment anyway.
It's been too long
Things have been pretty hectic for a while with Felix, work and work travel, and finalizing the details for the house Ruwani and I are building.
Felix is doing really well and there's been little to worry about. Before his birth, espeically in the last couple weeks, I was waiting anxiously without any idea what it would be like being a dad. Now I can say that it's awesome. Every day there's something new and oh those smiles! I've added a new photo album covering the first months up to now.
My parents visited recently to see Felix in person for the first time. He certainly enjoyed all the attention and the spanish and french nursery rhymes!
Over the past 3 months I've spent a couple weeks in the US, a week in Rome and a few days in Melbourne for work. The Rome trip was great because JP visited from London and we hung out over the first weekend. Plenty of adventures there with Bush in town on the Saturday, we were in the middle of the riots (due to Bush), getting stuck cause of the ridiculous security, getting un-stuck but fracturing 2 ribs in the process, taking over serving drinks at a local nightclub (and suffering for it the next couple days), JP missing his flight, etc... We have a few pics from around Rome and the riots but I'm yet to put them up.
The house design and contract is all sorted out now with building due to commence at any moment (if not already, depending on the horrible weather here). It's all very exciting but we have a long wait ahead of us before completion.
Web textarea editing with Vim!
Thanks to Nick pointing me in the right direction, I'm now able to use vim for textarea editing inside of Firefox! Oh how I've longed for this type of ability since forever. In the past I've even reverted to cutting and pasting text back and forth between vim. This is much easier .
The integration is actually more generic allowing you to execute external apps to Firefox to control certain functions. The extension is called mozex although you'll have to go directly to the project homepage and install the development version for Firefox 2.x compatibility.
Once installed, bring up the Add-ons screen and launch the Preferences for Mozex. Select the Textarea tab, select the "Don't let mozilla reformt your text", and fill in the text editor field with something like:
/usr/bin/gnome-terminal --geometry=80x40 -x vim %t
I've set the hotkey to CTRL+e so that when I come across a textarea I can just hit CTRL+e to start editing in vim. When you save and quit vim the textarea is automatically updated. Sweet!
Oh yes, it works under windows too - where I have it launching gvim
~1000km on the Giant OCR 1.0
1000km and 2 flats in 5 months on my Giant OCR 1.0 (2006). This has been my first road bike and I just love it! I started out doing 20km rides and have increased that to just over 40km regularly. This past Saturday I did a 60km ride and still felt strong at the end, although it was a little slower pace than usual. I'm also using the bike to get to and from Squash on Sundays, and when we move out to Bedfordale, I'll also use it to go shopping... Probably need a trailer at that point.
New Earthling: Felix Nicholls
Ruwani and I are proud new parents to Felix Nicholls born 6 days late on Apr 10th at 3.38kg and 53cm long. Ruwani was just incredible through the labour and into the days after, somehow retaining so much strength and seemed to be less tired than me!
A flat!
Bah! I've been riding quite a bit over the last couple months, especially since I got my bike computer working a couple weeks ago. Today I had just started out on what was to be the longest ride I've done on my road bike when I got a puncture :( 6km into the ride (was planning for a 50km ride). I was lucky though as the walk home was a more direct route at only 1.5km.
Prior to this I've never had a puncture. No doubt it was about time, but unfortunately everything is shut today so I can't buy a new inner tube and/or puncture repair kit.
Perth Sun Fair
Ruwani and I spent the day at the Perth Sun Fair. There were some really great passionate speakers covering a whole range of topics.
In the morning we saw Rod Dikes present on the history of electric vehicles and covering the present day situation. He also runs EV Power to help out with EV conversions and selling of EV kits for bicycles.
Next up we went to Warwick Rowell's presentation on "Adequate Technology for minimal energy consumption and ecological footprint". He made some great points how even though you can get swept up in all the fancy new technological developments around solar power, EVs, batteries, etc... there exists sufficient technology that when used adequately can lead to a minimum ecological footprint today. This is the path that Ruwani and I would like to head down, it seems Warwick is many years down that path already though! Check out Rosneath Farm - an eco-village embodying these concepts.
After lunch we came back to watch Griff Morris of Solar Dwellings give a talk on passive solar home design. Although I've done a lot of reading on the topic it's always nice to hear an expert talk about it. Although this presentation was more of an introduction to the concepts.
Warwick Rowell then gave a talk on Dry composting toilets which was quite
interesting since I knew virtually nothing about them. The key points were
that when done well you don't get any smells and the output is some great
compost. He recommended the Rota-Loo models which have a number of chambers
that you rotate through over the course of a couple years and it's
only after all the chambers are full that you have to empty them - at which
point the waste is all nicely converted to compost. The other tip was to add 2
handfuls of carbon (shredded paper, straw, etc...) for every dump to keep the
system tip top .
We then saw Jonathon Thwaites talk on using Fisher and Pykel washing machine engines as electricity generators. He seems surprised at the turn out of the talk, but that might have been due to all the nifty things he had built with these motors present just outside the seminar tent. There was modified exerciese bikes powering regular home appliances and tools, a wind turbine, and some awesome hand-powered scalextric cars and tracks for the kids to play with. Seems as though it's a pretty simple exercise to get these motors from old dead washing machine units and put them to some good use.
At the end of the day we saw another talk by Jonathan on his photovoltaic system. The summary, unfortunately, is the current government policies of (dis)incentives mean installing PV systems is like throwing money down the toilet as you can't expect to make a return. It really is unfortunate since, if anything, there should be strong incentives to move toward renewables and there are excellent case studies of places where it can work such as in Germany. Even Washington state in the US had a pretty good plan including rebates on installation of PV systems and a system where you would be paid a premium for feeding renewable energy into the grid. As a result, in Australia, we're likely to see PV installs only for those with strong ideological reasons versus economic reasons.
There were also many exhibitors pushing information and products around
sustainable living. As it's too late to recommend people go to this years, then I highly recommend attending next years .
We're still here!
I've been a bit quiet on the blog but Ruwani and I have been rather busy! First off, Ruwani is close to 38 weeks pregnant so we're really into the home stretch now. Over the last few weeks we've had baby classes, doctor visits and all the rest of that. Everything is going well and I'm waiting anxiously for the birth.
Ruwani has been working hard on putting together an Australian specific Veg Starter Kit, similar to the one put out by PETA in the US. PAWS is sponsoring the effort and will be printing up copies and organising distribution.
We've also been in the process of deciding what house to build on our land out in Bedfordale. In the end we've gone with Rammed Earth Homes and a modified Vision 8 design. Ruwani and I have a very specific goal in mind: sustainable living. This will be a road we go down learning along the way. I plan to blog about things as we discover them as well as talk about our progress. For the moment the plan is:
- Solar Passive design: we don't intend to have any active heating or cooling. The house will have a northern orientation (long sides north/south and short sides east/west) that will be fully shaded in summer and open to the winter sun. Rammed earth is also a great building material offering a large thermal mass to smooth out the daytime/evening temperature swings, low embodied energy, and a great finish! There is plenty of information up on the Your Home Design Guide for those interested.
- Rain Water tank(s): although we have scheme water to the property we plan on living off collected rain water and using it for the garden too.
- Onsite sewerage treatment: actually this is required as we don't have mains sewage to the property but there are a many choices. From traditional systems that require nasty chemicals to composting toilets. We intend to use a system by Biolytix that will capture all the house waste water (black and gray) and process it into safe irrigation water. We still need to seek council approval and a few other things before this is certain though.
- Solar Hot Water: virtually eliminate ongoing energy costs for hot water.
- Energy efficient appliances: A bit of research on EnergyRating.gov.au can lead you to much more energy efficient appliances, often at around the same costs. In our case it will also be worth spending extra as we'll be putting in our own power generation at some point and this will reduce the capital cost of that. We will be going with Vestfrost 2-door upright fridge(only) and separate chest freezer, and Bosch front-loader clothes washer (low water usage too). As can be seen from the Your Home Technical Manual and the "Energy use in the avg. Australian home" pie chart - most electricity use comes from heating/cooling, water heating, refrigeration and lighting. All areas that can easily be targetted.
- Renewable Power: we'll be signing up for NaturalPower (government approved Green Power program by Synergy Energy) initially then subsequently install a grid-connect solar power system to generate all our electricity needs and feed any excess electricity back into the grid. We've also switched the Lim's house over to NaturalPower. There is no excuse for not switching over!
- Permaculture (permanent agriculture): I'm only just learning about this, but we very much intend to have a well designed and balanced property/garden to grow most of our food needs (depending on available time).
- Reducing Waste: This is particularly hard since you can't seem to purchase anything without being covered in multiple layers of plastic. We've started to buy in bulk in reusable/recyclable containers although this is just a start since it only applies to a few areas.
- Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions: I'm trying to increase my bike riding and public transport use. I also work from home 90% of the time so don't need to commute regularly anyway. Being vegan also makes a big impact as raising animals for human food consumption is a massive (ill)use of energy consumption and therefore greenhouse gas emissions (not to mention other forms of pollution thanks to sewage and industrial agriculture to produce food for the animals). Perhaps giving up animal products is a bit extreme for you, but going for a more plant-based diet should certainly be attainable.
In Sydney for LCA2007!
I arrived in Sydney yesterday for linux.conf.au Sydney 2007. I guess I wasn't paying attention when I booked my flight because it departed Perth at 5:50am. I had to wake up at 4am! lol anyways, no probs.
So what am I doing today, well I'm writing my talk for the
Virtualization mini-conf of course! Nothing like last minute pressure.
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