Tiger Daze published

Today I published the lastest in Lyn McConchie's series of farming and animal tales, a volume titled Tiger Daze. It's published through Lulu and is available in paperback or PDF. Here's a direct link. The author lives in New Zealand. In 1989 she purchased a small farm and settled down to farm and write books. In both activities her cats have joyfully assisted her—not always when wanted. This is the story of Tiger and his feline friends—a tale of roistering cats and their frequently bemused human. Lyn has sold short work and novels to publishers in America, Canada, the UK, Russia, Poland, Australia and New Zealand. She is three times winner of New Zealand's Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best SF/Fantasy Book of the Year. I published two earlier books in the series through Lightning Source; they are available on Amazon.com: Farming Daze and Daze on the Land. Lyn's website is here. I need to update it.

Science fiction and fantasy reading

I just finished Kim Stanley Robinson's Fifty Degress Below, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It's a sequel to Forty Signs of Rain, at the end of which he almost destroys Washington D.C. in a major flood. Both books spend a lot of time discussing the politics of science in general and the National Science Foundation in particular, as well as the author's concerns about climate change, global warming etc. Very timely! Before that it was C.J. Cherryh's Destroyer and Pretender (the latest 2 volumes of a continuing series that I very much enjoy) and John Varley's Mammoth, which is partly a time travel story. I loved the scene where a herd of mammoths suddenly appears (from the past) near the La Brea tar pits in the LA of today and starts stampeding through Hollywood. Others have included Margaret Ball's Disappearing Act (I always enjoy her stuff too), Juliet McKenna's The Warrior's Bond and The Assassin's Edge (4th & 5th books in a fantasy series I started reading several years ago), and probably some other books I've forgotten.

Another geek point for Jean

Usually when I run into something I don't understand about Linux or computers or other gadgets, I yelp for help, but today I had the time and energy to try to solve a problem on my own—and succeeded! It was, of course, easy to solve, once I figured out a few of the non-obvious (to me) steps along the way. Warning to Windows users: unfamiliar terminology ahead. Eric gave me an old 30GB USB hard drive to use for storing my digital photos. The problem: the drive was formatted for some Mac drive format. Ubuntu could see the drive, and the directory names, but it couldn't do anything with it (even read the contents). Eric said "you'll have to reformat it". "Ummm", said I, "how? I can't see any commands for formatting disks." "Use fdisk", said Eric, who then ducked and ran for cover. Well, I am totally enthusiastic about command-line stuff, so I did some searching on the Ubuntu forums to see if there was another way. Found it: Gparted (Gnome partition editor). Cool! So I installed Gparted, which let me see the partitions on the USB drive but not do anything with it ("Format" was greyed out). Then I looked up Gparted's website and found a note that I had to unmount the partition first. Okay, that makes sense (it never occurred to me, because I haven't done enough mount-unmount type stuff to remember it). I found the menu command for that, after which reformatting was straightforward and easy. Unplugged the drive, plugged it in again; it remounted automatically, and away we go. I copied my whole shared partition onto it, and checked on the other laptop that it could be read (yes).

Medical news: good and bad

The good news is that all my blood tests (glucose, cholesterol, etc), blood pressure, and the other usual indicators are in the healthy range. The only things wrong with me are 25 lb too much weight and my hip joints are wearing out. I've been having increasing problems with my hips and knees while walking, and my usual combination of chiropractic and glucosamine hasn't been working well enough, so I saw my GP, got x-rays & other tests, and now have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon for an opinion on whether or when to have a hip replacement (or both, or one or both knees as well). I think it's more "when" than "whether" on at least the right hip, which even I can tell from x-rays isn't doing too well. Unfortunately, the first available appointment (for a non-urgent case) is in late July. The closest specialist is in Mackay (1.5-2 hours' drive from here). I could have tried to see someone further away, but I suspect that waiting times are similar or worse all over. I just hope I like this surgeon; otherwise I'll have to try to see someone else (again after a long delay). In other news, I need some dental work done. Again, nothing urgent (lots of broken teeth, none of them giving me any pain), but I've been putting it off because my local dentist (while thoroughly competent) seems to favor treatment that I don't want or won't consider. My former chiropractor (who has since left town) was telling me about his dentist's philosophy which sounds much closer to mine. I finally got around to contacting the dentist's office (he's near Brisbane, a plane flight—or two days' drive—away from here) and got the first available appointment—in October! (With treatment later in Oct and in November.) I suspect Murphy's Law will ensure the hip replacement will end up being scheduled at the same time as my dental appointments, so I'll have to postpone one or the other. Good thing I don't have any overseas travel (or other expensive trips that would be a problem to cancel) planned or required for this year!

The Graphing Calculator story

This isn't new (copyright 2004 Ron Avitzur), but I just discovered it. http://www.pacifict.com/Story/ I found the story quite inspiring, as well as amusing in some places. Warning: it's long. Here's how it starts:

I used to be a contractor for Apple, working on a secret project. Unfortunately, the computer we were building never saw the light of day... In August 1993, the project was canceled. A year of my work evaporated, my contract ended, and I was unemployed.

I was frustrated by all the wasted effort, so I decided to uncancel my small part of the project. I had been paid to do a job, and I wanted to finish it. My electronic badge still opened Apple's doors, so I just kept showing up.

Farewell to the floppy disk

I recently spent several days doing a boring but necessary chore: copying files off all my old floppy disks before the last computer in the house with a floppy drive finally gives up the ghost (or is given away to charity). Getting the old files onto a CD got a wee bit complicated because the computer with the floppy drive does not have a CD burner, so I have to get the files onto the computer with a CD burner. Turns out the two computers have no means of communication in common, but I have a third computer that can read a CompactFlash (CF) card (which the old computer can write to) and then write to a USB drive, which the new computer (the one that burns CDs) can read. So... copy from floppy to hard drive 1, copy from hard drive 1 to CF card, copy from CF card to hard drive 2, copy from there to USB drive, copy from there to new computer, burn CD. Whew! I thought for awhile I would have to email all the files to myself, just to get them from one computer to another. Mind you, many of these old files probably can't be opened by any programs I now own, so this may be wasted effort in the long run, but OTOH a lot of people have this problem so there probably are programs on the web that will convert from old file formats to modern ones. The photo shows a few of the floppies; I must have thrown out twice that many before I thought of taking a picture of them.

Roadkill Australia

Last July I caught up with someone I haven't seen in nearly 30 years. Len Zell was then a nature photo­grapher and biologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville, north of where I live now. He is now a photographer and author, with a string of credits for his field research and ecotourism work. Len was one of the lecturers on board the Kimberley cruise boat. Like me, Len had moved away from Townsville some years ago to pursue his career interests. Turns out he was moving back to Townsville in September. In December I was invited to attend the launch of Len’s latest book, Roadkill Australia. The launch was fun, and as I suspected, several people there remem­bered me from 30 years ago, so we had a pleasant catch-up session over the champagne. Len had chosen his "launchers" well. One is a local media personality who did a hilarious introduction, insulting the book and half the audience, to everyone's delight. The other is a professor of marine biology at the local university, who also did a good job of the local jokes and references to Len's life, starting from the days when we had all met each other in 1974 or so, there in Townsville. The book is an interesting mixture of biological information, somewhat tongue-in-cheek recipes for cooking freshly-killed critters ("carefully remove the gravel..."), along with health warnings ("may contain parasites and be unsanitary"), anecdotes about the author's experiences, photos of dead animals, and other stuff. Find it on http://roadkillaustralia.com/.

Port of Airlie: more construction in a boom town

In the photos I posted yesterday, you will see a lot of trees in the foreground. These are mangrove trees lining the edge of Muddy Bay (also known as Boathaven, at least by the real estate agents). Most of the photos were taken from an open area near the Sailing Club. (Historical note: years ago this area was a caravan park, and the toilet/shower block is still there for the use of visitors to the picnic area and the beach at that end of town.) A portion of Muddy Bay is now under development for a new marina project known as Port of Airlie. An artist's impression of the development (superimposed on an aerial photograph) is here. [Links updated 18 April 2007.] When it is complete, this marina will no doubt be an attractive, though possibly noisy, addition to the view from our apartment, but for the next several years it is just another construction zone and an eyesore. Here are some photos taken from our balcony. Two years ago December 2006

Airlie Beach: living in a boom town

We moved to Airlie Beach nearly 9 years ago, about 15 minutes before the boom started. We've been living in a construction zone ever since, with no sign of it stopping anytime soon. Here are some photos of the hillside where our apartment is located. (Note for Americans: our apartment is what you probably call a "condo".) July 1998 (arrow marks location of our place) Later in 1998 -- clearing space on hill above us 1999 -- construction of Martinique resort, clearing begun for Pinnacles Later in 1999 -- Martinique complete, The Pinnacles under construction 2003 -- Pinnacles have been complete for some time 2004 -- work has begun above Pinnacles (view from across Muddy Bay)

There goes the neighbourhood

For the nearly 9 years we’ve lived in Airlie Beach, Eric and I have enjoyed bragging about how far away the nearest traffic lights were (150 km south and 300 km north, in case you’re wondering). Alas, no longer. A few months ago, a set of lights was installed at an intersection by our new shopping centre, and just a few weeks ago a second set of lights went in near the old shopping centre (opposite the primary school). Both sets of lights are, in my not-at-all-humble opinion (and in the opinion of many others in the area) quite unnecessary. The traffic problems they are intended to solve could have been dealt with in other ways, more in keeping with the laid-back ambiance of this area. In July, while in Broome (a town at least twice the size of Airlie Beach, which copes with similar crowds of tourists during part of the year), I noted that there are no traffic lights. A few intersections would benefit from a roundabout, but otherwise they seem to be doing just fine over there—as indeed we were here too. I am thoroughly disgusted by the way our local government handled this. I had been looking forward to joining others in protests against the lights, but each set was put up while I was out of town, so I missed the opportunity to put my rusty protesting skills into action.

Open standards and OpenDocument

I don't plan to fill this blog with chatter about these topics, because I'm writing about them in another place. If you're interested, I encourage you to read my entries on one of the O'Reillynet blogs (click on "Blog" in the menu under my name). I've added some links to other people's blogs on similar topics. Look over there in the right-hand column, just under my photo.

So many interests, so little time

Yes, it's been a very long time since I posted anything here. I've been busy! I may do some fill-in entries later, but for now, a summary of the past 19 months or so:

• In August 2005 Eric and I started an organisation called Friends of OpenDocument Inc, which is now incorporated as an association in Queensland, Australia. Amongst other things, it provides bookkeeping, banking and publishing services for other groups such as OOoAuthors (a group writing user guides for OpenOffice.org) and the OpenDocument Fellowship, an advocacy group for the OpenDocument format. My participation in these four groups has eaten up much of my life.
• I've been travelling. A lot. Some of my travels (in Australia, and in Central Europe last September) are recorded on my travel website, Avalook. Some trips that aren't mentioned there include several visits to the USA to see my mother during the last years of her life (she passed away in March 2006). On those trips I also managed to visit friends, attend conferences (sometimes working at an OpenOffice.org or OpenDocument display booth) and science fiction conventions.
• I've almost completed switching from Microsoft Windows to Ubuntu Linux, having found replacement programs for almost everything I want or need to do on the computer. The exceptions tend to be testing something in Windows rather than working in it, and running one of my scanners. The old scanner works fine with Linux; the new scanner doesn't work at all. So my old laptop acts as the Windows machine when I need it.
• I've also been playing around with a lot of the recent web-based programs from Google and others, such as Google Docs and Spreadsheets and Google Calendar. I'm sure I'll have more to say about them in other posts.

I'm not promising to blog regularly. Even though I have lots to say, it's definitely a case of "so many interests, so little time!"

New mobile phone

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I'd had a visit to a dentist and an eye specialist. Both of these people are in Townsville, a city about 4 hours' drive from where I live. Eric and I drove there on Monday morning, and we stayed two nights, doing some shopping on Tuesday morning. I managed to find all sorts of odd items that I couldn't find closer to home, and I also managed to not spend huge sums of money. (Several times when we make these medical trips I end up buying something expensive, like a new car... but not this time.) I did, however, get a new mobile phone. Mine was 7 years old and didn't have a USB connector to enable me to use it as a modem with a computer that doesn't have a serial port (like the laptop I'm using for travel); nor did it have outgoing SMS message capability, which I've been finding the occasional need for over the last year. Because I travel a lot in areas where the only mobile phone connection is CDMA, my choice of service provider is limited to one: Telstra. So, upon finding a Telstra store, I popped in for a chat. I was not surprised to discover that explaining my internet requirements was a challenge. The phone store staff (several of them) kept assuming I wanted to get email (or view websites) on the phone itself, despite my repeated statements that I did not want to do that -- I wanted to use the phone to connect my computer to the internet, just as I would connect it to a fixed phone line at home. Eventually I was able to extract enough information to choose a phone that would do what I wanted, despite the best efforts of the helpful staff. Fortunately the rest of the process was easy: switching my phone number from the old handset to the new one. They didn't have the required USB cable in stock, but they did order it for delivery to my home address. As soon as it arrives, I'll see if I can get it all working.

Medical news -- all good

Last week I had a routine medical checkup, including the usual blood tests, and I'd delighted to report that all the numbers were good. I got a printout that included the results of previous tests going back about 5 years, and could see that some numbers had improved, most had stayed about the same, and only 1 or 2 had worsened, but not enough to worry about. Yesterday I had an appointment with a periodontist to do some "scaling and root planing" on several teeth. On the basis of my x-rays, he'd scheduled two sessions, and the description I was given on the phone sounded ghastly. The reality turned out much better. First, my teeth and gums were in better shape than he'd thought from the x-rays, so a one-hour treatment sufficed; and second, the treatment wasn't nearly as bad as I'd been led to expect. It wasn't even painful without a local anaesthetic, just uncomfortable. Today I had a checkup on my eyes (routine follow up to cataract surgery several years ago) and the specialist said all was well, in fact better than she'd expected. She's been concerned that I might develop retinal problems, but there's no sign of anything wrong. That's a relief! So all of that, along with my chiropractor's enthusiasm about how well I'm doing, and the fact that I feel great, means that I'm a happy camper! Now to get my walking distance and speed up to that of some 80-year-olds I know, and I'll be bloody fantastic!

Installing Ubuntu Linux

Today I successfully installed Ubuntu Linux on my new laptop. It was so easy! The only complication I ran into was understanding the choices on the partitioning menu. I had two partitions pre-done on the new laptop, and was intending to use the larger one for Linux. I'm sure I would have been better off with only one partition and letting Ubuntu take care of everything. Anyway... the choices were in geek-speak, and even with my Unix buddy Eric helping, we weren't sure which choice was the appropriate one. So we tried several; fortunately the wrong choices returned error messages (instead of doing something awful to the existing paritions) and by matter of elimination I eventually stumbled on the correct choice. After that, I had no problems at all. The laptop was connected to our ethernet network, so Ubuntu helpfully offered to download updates and install them, which it did without a hitch. It also detected the modem, the wireless card, and the wireless network, though it refused to connect to either of them. I suspect I need to do something else to enable that... a question for another day. The rest of the day went quickly as I explored things and installed programs. I enjoyed the beautiful brown Ubuntu interface -- as well as the really cool screen savers!

My new laptop arrived today!

After the hassle of getting the order approved, I've been watching the Dell website with considerable interest as my laptop moved rapidly through the stages of being built and shipped. The estimated date for delivery was early next week, worrisome because we'll be away for three days, but to my astonishment it was delivered today! Eric's new Mac has been delayed, so now he's into computer envy, and worried that his might come while we're way next week. The new computer promptly found our wireless network as well as being happy with the ethernet connection. Good start! I spent several hours doing the things I do with any new computer, starting with muting the sound and then trying to remember where all the things are that I need to change to make WinXP look like something I want to use, not its "web look" interface that I hate. Tomorrow I'll install Linux.

Not impressed with Dell's customer service today

When I bought my current Dell laptop a year ago, there was a problem with the order (the website failed to complete processing it), so I had to phone their customer service and get it sorted out. I was very happy with the service I got; it was fast and polite, and I could understand the accent of the person serving me. Today's experience was far less positive. After checking the website each day for several days to see if the order was being processed, and finding no record of my order at all, I had to phone today. (The web site says that once one's credit card payment is approved, then the order will be listed online. The fact that it wasn't there suggested a credit card problem... possibly I'd typed something in wrong.) So I phoned and listened to the recitation of "to do x, press 1; to do y, press 2, etc" twice without finding a choice that seemed to fit my problem. I finally picked something that sounded logical, and listened to music and advertisements for a long time before a person answered my call. Alas, the person's accent was almost unintelligible to me (I assume from the accent that the help desk is somewhere in India), but after I explained my problem, he said he was the wrong person to be talking to, and he would transfer me to the right person. After another long wait I got a different person (with a slightly more comprehensible accent) who also insisted he was the wrong person for me to be talking to, but he would transfer me to the right person. Another long wait (good thing it's a toll-free number, and I was prepared with a cup of tea and some snacks), and I got a woman who I could actually understand... who first said that she was the wrong person for me to talk to -- at which point I said rather sharply that I had been transferred twice and was getting a bit tired of this. She then claimed that all was well with my order even though it wasn't listed on the website. I argued, and insisted that she check the status of my order. She seemed aggrieved to have to go to that effort (being the wrong person for me to talk to), but apparently she did, because... Well, golly gosh, what a surprise -- my credit card payment had not been approved. Why not? I inquired. Don't know, but I'll fix it, she said. So there was something wrong, I said, and isn't it good I asked you to check? Mumble, mumble was the response. An hour or so later, my order is listed on the website, just like it should have been 4 days ago. I hope that call was recorded for purposes of quality control and training, like the recorded message at the beginning warns you it might be.

Buying a new laptop

After two days of trying to talk myself out of it, I ordered a new Dell laptop. It's an Inspiron 510M with a 15-inch display and lots of goodies in it. It's too heavy, but lighter than my current one. I checked online forums to see if it's compatible with the latest version of Ubuntu Linux; all indications are good, so I'm encouraged. I don't want to cope with tricky setups on my first foray into Linux. I can do command line, but I really don't want to be bothered. I also ordered an optional power pack with an airline connector (among other bits). I've been really annoyed at Dell that they changed the power input socket on their Inspiron laptops; I haven't been able to get a tip for the Igo Juice power pack (that I bought several years ago) to fit the power input on the Inspiron 1150 I'm using now. I hate waiting for gadgetry to arrive...

Computer envy strikes again

Eric decided to buy a new Macintosh, so I got computer envy and started seriously reading the Dell advertisements in the computer section of this week's Australian (newspaper). Even though my current laptop is only a year old and is working fine, I'm looking for excuses to buy a new one. Let's see... the wireless card in the old one doesn't work with our home network; the card is too old. Never mind that a new wireless card would be way cheaper than a new computer with a built-in modern card. Hmm... I need a bigger drive so I have plenty of room to install Linux on a dual boot and keep all my Windows programs as well as installing Linux ones. That's a better excuse, though I could replace the drive in the old laptop. I need more memory... again, I could put more in the old laptop.

Ah! Got it... I'm nervous having only one computer... what if it breaks down? Now that's a good one... FUD is great as an excuse for doing what you want to do in the first place.

Resurrecting an old computer (perhaps)

Today I didn't feel like doing anything I should be doing, so I looked on my low-priority list and found "see if the old desktop computer works". I bought this machine in late 2001 and it went through 2 main boards in rapid succession and then (after the warranty had expired) developed more faults, like refusing to start -- an apparent hardware problem. I speculated that it might be heat-and-humidity related, since I've mostly attempted to use it during the summer. Today I tried to start it and it booted up and ran for a few hours before quitting. I booted it again, with the same result. I then took the sides off so I can see whether the CPU fan is failing, or something else semi-obvious is happening -- it failed again while I was out taking my evening walk, but the CPU fan was still going fine. Tomorrow I start pulling out boards and doing other boring diagnostic stuff. Whether we get it working or not, it's going out -- either to a good home (preferably in a drier climate) or to someone to use for spare parts. I suspect that in a less humid climate, it would run fine. A former neighbour had an old computer that gave her endless trouble while she lived here, but after she moved to Canberra (which has a very dry climate) two years ago, her computer worked perfectly.