Weekly summary #7: photos

First, I'll start with two administration notices:

1. Some of you have repeatedly asked for photos. Here are some. Since the only drives we have are from the home to the university and back, and since our house is still a mess, the photos are only of the university. Maybe I'll add more later.
2. I decided that the Verizon phone is so unusable that I left Verizon for T-mobile and now I use my Sony-Ericsson from home. On the other hand, I decided that it's not a good idea to put my phone on the net, so if you need it, just ask for my new phone. In any case, don't use the Verizon phone number.
3. As always, you're encouraged to follow the links in this update.

The reason this update is late is the Obama rally we attended yesterday at the University of Cincinnati (video). We're not into politics that much, and in the previous post I mentioned that there's not enough interest in the coming elections, especially comparing to their importance to America and to the world. Apparently one the candidates has decided to spark things up and yesterday Senator Obama made an appearance in Nyppert Stadium at the University of Cincinnati. We decided to go, as this is probably the closest we'll ever get to the president of the United States, according to the polls. On the other hand, Shimon Peres has been elected several times in the polls so nothing is decided yet. Or, in other way, you can see this Simpsons clip to understand why McCain will be elected at the end, and pay special attention to the sentence in which Homer says: "... this does not happen in America...".

Before talking about the rally itself, I just want to give you another example on how this country and the people in this city are ready for a totalitarian regime. The doors of the stadium opened at 6, and we left my office at the university at 5 so that we'll have a good chance of getting in. Already there was a huge line. Everyone was standing in an organized fashion and we simply walked to the end of the line and joined it. People were standing on the road at that time, and then came a police officer and politely said: "folks, I need you to be on the pavement". In less than 5 seconds a group of more than 20 people moved to stand on the pavement, with no questions or arguments. Total adherence to the law-enforcement representative.

Anyway, I have some observations regarding Barack Obama as a candidate and possibly the next president of the United States (I guess you knew I would make some comments about him, right?).
Firstly, this is something we saw yesterday, and I don't know if it is not the same in the case of McCain, but the candidacy of Obama has made him a merchandise. We saw people selling everything with his face and name on: T-shirts, bumper stickers, car magnets, and even play cards (that had Bush and McCain as the jokers). Anything you want for a price that ranges from $1 to $25. He has become a rock star rather than a candidate. Again, this might be the case for John McCain as well (I know that Sarah Palin has become an icon as well, as I mentioned in the previous update). Just notice this link: www.barackobama.com in the picture I took yesterday.
Secondly, if the way Obama manages his time can give us any clue on the way he will run the next administration, then he will not do a good job. Yesterday we waited for him for 40 minutes before he appeared on stage, and that's after the other small-time politicians finished their speeches. The crowd around us, comprised mainly by supporters and fans of the Democratic party (unlike us, who were just there for the experience), was getting frustrated with his delay. Some said: "hey, we need to be at work tomorrow, those of us who still have work".
Thirdly, I genuinely think that there is no good candidate in the coming elections. Both Obama and McCain are ill-suited for this job. Obama is too young and inexperienced, although very charismatic judging by the female crowd around me yesterday even sexy, to comprehend and manage the current turmoil in the financial markets and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. McCain on the other hand is too old, and too attached to his Republican party, and to the legacy of the Bush administration. If there is something evident in the current situation, it is that this administration is probably the worst ever in the history of the United States. I think that what people seek is change, and Obama is change for them (his slogans are: "change" and "hope"), but in my view: to say "change" is not enough. In the terms of a systems engineer, you need to define the requirements in an unambiguous manner, and just saying "change" is not enough. You need a plan, preferably a feasible one, and I can't say I've heard one coming from the Obama campaign managers. For example, I think that his plans will leave a HUGE hole in the American budget, which will only drive this economy to a worse situation than it already is.
Last observation I have of Obama is that he started to feel too confident in his success. Yesterday, I heard him use the term "regime" for the current Bush government. I don't know how many of you are aware of the different terms the English language has for a government. Usually, the neutral term is "government", while a positive way to say it is "administration" (that's usually how Americans call their own government), and "regime" is the negative wording for such. Usually the word regime refers to the Irani government, or Saddam Hussein's government. When used in the context of the Bush government it has significant consequences on the way Barack Obama thinks.

Can an African American become the president of the United States with all the prejudices and bigotry here? A few months ago I was doubted that very much; now, in light of the economic crisis, I think that people are so aching for change that some of them are willing to overlook questions of race and color. According to the polls here, he will be elected. If he doesn't it will be the surprise of the century, but it will also show that underneath the surface there is still a dark current of hatred between the whites and blacks in America.

Moving on to other issues, we have started to think about our upcoming home visit. One thing that came up pretty quickly, not surprising given our bent towards good food and coffee, and the lack of such here, is our need for such. I don't know if we can afford too many of those, but we certainly would like to go to some of our favorite places in Tel Aviv, and until now the food wish-list includes:

• Joya
• Tamara
• Vanillia
• Arcaffe
• A cafe near my home
• A good Humus/lafa place (with emphasis on good!) for me
• D wants to add Barbari or Yevulim

So, if something here sounds good to you as well, we will be happy to schedule a lunch or a dinner there. Also, if something good has opened since we left, that's fine by us.

Quick updates from the previous week:

1. I finally got my first paycheck. Hurray! Only a month and a half without a salary.
   
2. Still no updates on our other administrative issues with the university (i.e. domestic partnership).
3. We went to a Halloween party organized by the graduate students at the College of Business. I think that it was the first time that I saw American women allow themselves to dress in "revealing" clothing. I think that more revealing clothing is considered "slutty" here (at least in Cincinnati). We were supposed to wear costumes, so D and I bought hats. She got a large hat and I got a fedora hat. I tried for the "great depression era unemployed". Unfortunately, they didn't have the fedora in red. Which brings me to the last update:
   
4. Windows on my old laptop has finally crashed. I had to install the entire system with the KDE version of Ubuntu (version 8.10). That's the first time in my life that I use a computer with no Microsoft operating system installed on it. So far, apart from a few glitches, it behaves itself. We intend it to serve as our media center at home, and it takes some tweaking before you can do that in Linux (basically because of the proprietary media formats used everywhere). Ynet is still a mess with all the non-standard video streams they use, but nothing that a good Greasemonkey script and a good media player can't handle.

For those of you who got this far: mood-o-meter - high for me, low for D. Did you notice that we are at 180 degrees phase from each other?

How to Restore Your Kubuntu

Well, upgrade didn't go well so I decided to restore my 7.04 version.

However, Kubuntu 7.04 doesn't come with all the features I like out of the box. This is the place to explain how to restore important features after installation.

Step 1: First, let adept_notifier prompt you to install all the updates since the version has been released. Fetching all the updates is roughly 200-250 MB, so be patient.

Step 2: If you have a backup disk of your files, this is a good time to restore it to the correct places. Make sure you edit all the folders from read only to read-write for you and other programs that make use of them. Failing to do so may cause crashes down the line or just some programs to fail. For example, if you configure Thunderbird (see step 4) then Thunderbird will not be able to write mails to all your mail folders.

Step 3: After the updates are installed, I like my browser to be Firefox instead of the default Konqueror supplied with Kubuntu. To do so, use adept. It will install the last tested version of Firefox. Usually it is not the last one Mozilla released, but it is close enough.

Step 4: Quit adept before this step. Use this outstanding script: "installnewthunderbird_3.2.0.sh" from SourceForge to get and install Thunderbird and its dependencies. BTW, there are newer version that I didn't try, so if they are good, feel free to update me. When you have the script ready, open a Konsole using Kmenu->System->Konsole. Go to the directory where the script is and then run the command: "sudo bash ./installnewthunderbird_3.2.0.sh -install". Enter your sudo password and answer the questions made by the script.

Step 5: If you hate the way some fonts are used in Linux, use adept to install MS truetype fonts, e.g. Arial. To do so, simply search in adept for the token "mstt" and install the msttcorefonts package that comes up.

Step 6: You would probably want to have some important features, especially the ones you have in MS-Windows. Media playing is one of the most important things. So get back to adept and do the following:

• Install helix for real player. Make sure you install the plugin to Firefox.
• Install mplayer. Make sure you install the plugin to Firefox.
• Install xmms to get support for asf files.
• Install avidemux to get support for avi files.
• Install totem while you are at it.
• In adept, search for xvid and divx and install any package that seems to add support for these file types.
• If you are using Amarok to play media files test its ability to play mp3 files. To do so, simply try to engage a last.fm stream, provided that you have an account there. If Amarok can't play it, it will request your permission to install it. Make sure you close any adept window before you do so, as it requires access to the packages database.
  

You can test your settings by trying to view clips posted in Ynet. If everything works fine you press the "play" button and somehow it plays the clip. It may takes a few remove / install of the above before everything works.

Step 7: If you want to have Hebrew subtitles you downloaded when playing movies, do the following (from the following link):

• Create a folder in your home/user (~) folder named ".mplayer".
  
• Use a text editor (e.g. Kate) to create a file named "config" and add the following rows to the file:
  

• flip-hebrew=yes
  fribidi-charset=ISO8859-8
  slang=he
  font=/usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/Arial.ttf
  subfont-encoding=ISO8859-8
  subfont-text-scale=4

• Make sure that the font line really points to an existing file with the same name in that folder.
• Close the file.

Step 8: Java is an extremely important tool. Many pages have applets that require Java runtime environment. To install a working updated Java runtime environment use adept. Search for sun-java and install the latest version (currently, 1.6.x). Make sure you install:

• bin, the package itself.
  
• fonts, just in case.
  
• jre, Java runtime environment.
  
• plugin, this is used by Firefox and other browsers to run applets using the jre.

You can test this by trying to run a Java applet from the web. If everything is configured correctly, the applet should work.

Step 9: Localization and languages. I use Hebrew in many cases. To have multiple selection of languages in Kubuntu, do the following.

• From the Kmenu select System Settings.
• In general tab, select Regional & Language.
  
• If the list of languages does not have the language you want, select install new language.
• In the new window that opened find the language, select it and install it.
• Use the list of languages to select which language is default.
  
• In the same window select the Keyboard Layout sub-window.
  
• In this menu make sure all the keyboard layouts you want are listed. To add a missing one simply find it in the available layouts list and add it to the active list.
  
• If you have more then one layout it is advisable to have an icon which tells you which layout is used. To do so, go to the "switching options" tab, select "show country flag". While at it, see if the "switching policy" matches the one you like. I prefer that each window has its own policy, so I selected the last policy.
• I guess you would like to be able to switch layouts using a keyboard "hotkey". If so, return to "System Settings" and select "Keyboard & Mouse". Select "Keyboard Shortcuts" and in the first tab scroll down to "Keyboard" (last one). Select it and modify the default (alt+ctrl+k) to whatever you want. Note that the MS-Windows alt+shift can not be used. I use alt+<, which is the one closest to the left shift in my keyboard.

Step 10: Additional extras:
I like to have some non-Ubuntu packages. I installed the following:

• Skype, the free voice over IP phone. Simply go to Skype webpage, select download and download the package. Then make sure that the adept manager is closed and using right-click select the downloaded file. Select the Kubuntu packages install, approve the required password and that's it. You'll find the Skype installed and ready in your internet menu entries.
• Picasa, the pictures album manager, from Google. Use this link to select the download. When the file is ready, simply do as written above for Skype.
  

Step 11: Evolution and exchange. I guess that you are using some kind of exchange server, probably in work. You may have exchange over the web access, but you hate the way it is managed by Firefox. The solution is named Evolution, from Novell, but it is a bit tricky to configure and run. Do the following:

• First, in adept search for evolution, select evolution and its exchange plug-in.
• Now, evolution is a bit tricky sometimes to run in the first time. Try to run it from the Kmenu->Internet menu. If does not load, open a Konsole using Kmenu->System->Konsole.
• In the Konsole write "evolution" and press enter. If the last line is "segmentation fault (core dumped) run: "evolution --disable-eplugin" instead. Most probably that you are able to run evolution. In evolution window, use "edit-preferences" and add an e-mail account. It does not matter which one of your accounts you add.
  
• Now, close evolution, exit the Konsole and open evolution from the regular Kmenu.
• In evolution, add your exchange account. When selecting server type, select Microsoft Exchange.
  
• Enter your user name. Note that user name is not email address. User name is the one you use to log in to the network.
  
• Enter your over the web access URL. It would probably look like: https:\\owa.company.com\ecxhange\
• Authenticate it using your login password and now you have a window of properties.
• In "identity" tab enter your required information.
  
• In "receiving mail" tab make sure everything is correct.
• In "receiving options" tab you configure how often to check for mail in the server and other staff. Select whatever you like. The most important thing is "Global Catalog server name". This is where the server saves the global directory of email addresses. Look in your outlook address book settings in MS-Outlook to find that out.
• Defaults tab usually needs no adjustments.
• In "exchange settings" you can add "out of the office" auto-reply or set passwords.
• In "security" tab I have nothing crossed, so probably everything is not required there.

Congratulations, Kubuntu is configured now. If you think the time to configure it was too long, ask yourself how much time it took you to configure Windows correctly, does it work properly and quickly and are you happy with it? If the questions you answer are pro-Windows then don't bother switching to Linux.

To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade?

Ubuntu 7.10 is due to be released tomorrow (18 October). I have been using Kubuntu 7.4 (the KDE version of Ubunto 7.4) for six months now. During this time I found that this Linux distribution is a very stable, user-friendly and beautiful system. In the last two months the new 7.10 version has been finalized and some test versions were made available for brave users. Of course, I tried the Alpha and Beta versions. I was a bit disappointed, because many packages that I used were not part of the distribution and internet connection was problematic.
The worst was that upgrade required me to format my Linux partition and each time I had to restore my files. I hope that the official distribution will be kind enough to allow me to keep my partition.

So, I think I'll upgrade my Kubuntu to 7.10. Come again to see if I recommend to do so.