Southwest Virginia Blogs

This morning I had a few more minutes to mess around with my Linux box.  I knew that I had imported photos to it before so I decided to give it another shot.  I probably should have searched my own blog for advice, but perhaps learning it the hard way will make the information stick this time.

After a few minutes of fiddling with things, all of sudden it hit me, I needed to download directly from the camera using PTP mode.  I dug around to find my cable, set my Nikon to PTP mode,  and booted the computer.

As soon as I was logged in as Linux user, I plugged the camera in to the computer.  In a few moments, I was downloading my photos. 

We took a break since the temperatures were in the seventies to go have lunch outside by the water at the Icehouse in Swansboro.  After being reinforced with a Grouper Grandwich, I decided to battle the printing issue once again.

Since I had failed to get my HP C6180 AIO to work as a network printer on Linux, I decided to try it using USB.  Ubuntu Linux immediately saw it.  I just guessed and picked the HP 8100 as the closest thing to it.  I did a successful test text print from OpenOffice.  Then I printed one of my photos to the 4X6 photo tray.  As far as I can tell the print looks as good as one coming from Mac OSX or Windows.  I decided to go for broke and try XSane to see if I could scan something.  It did not work.  For now, I'll be satisfied that I can use the HP AIO to print with USB if I need it.

While I had Linux running I decided to see if I could easily set up networking again with my Mac OSX box.  I tried a couple of ways to log in to my Mac but I could not seem to get the right login information.   I took the radical step of installing a demo of NFS manager on my Mac.  Once again I am sure I was missing a simple step, but I could not get that working right either.

Since I already had the Mac sharing folders to the Windows box, I set up Windows to share a folder for the Mac.  While logging in from the Mac, it dawned on me how I needed to handle the request for domain and password when logging in from Linux.  I rebooted into Linux and made the changes. Now I have a shared folder on the Mac which can be accessed from Linux or Windows.  I also have a folder on Windows which can be accessed from the Mac.  I am going to let that suffice for now.  Sometime when I have more time, I'll try to figure out how to share a folder from Ubuntu Linux.

Linux is a great value proposition, but perhaps just not for folks like me who keep changing things without being able to remember how they made it work the last time.

I find the updates on Ubuntu Linux some of the smoothest on any platform.  I am sure if I had a Linux buddy nearby, I could be a perfectly happy Linux user.

I am actually amazed that I have gotten this far.  It has been nearly two years since I first tried to load Linux on my Dell.  I recorded my battle of getting Linux to even see my hardware in "The Linux Saga Continues."

Now sometimes I think I have forgotten as much about Linux as I remember.  I have learned that it is pretty hard to be any kind of expert in three operating systems, but it certainly gives you some perspective on users that might be facing some challenges.

I look forward to seeing if the operating system wars will continue, and if we'll actually see some real progress instead of just bells and whistles.

Back when I last paid the Apple operating system tariff in the spring of 2005, I asked one of Apple's best system engineers if I could expect some really great software to take advantage of this new operating system.  He assured me that we would see those applications.

They have been few and far between.  In fact I haven't seen any software to excite me in a long time until I ran into Backpack.  The neat thing about Backpack is that being web driven, your platform does not matter.

I divide the world into those who believe their calendar must be integrated into their email, and the rest of us who have not been schooled in the world of Outlook email and appointments.

I like calendars, to-do lists, web pages, and sharing files and photos.  Backpack lets me do all of that.  It also makes me much more efficient when using multiple computers.  I can create a project page and email files to the page.  No matter what computer I am using, if I have Internet access I can get to my files.  I can also create "write boards" which are ways to create content and have other comment on it. It seems to me that "write boards" are wikis without all the hassle.

I was a big fan of the Kiko calendar before it disappeared.  Backpack has a much better calendar, and so far its text message alerts to my cell phone and email alerts have been very reliable, something that was never the case for the free Kiko.  I do not mind paying for a calendar that really works.

In fact I could do some pretty serious blogging from Backpack.  I created this page, "A grinder for the Bodum Coffee Pot" this morning.

What really excites me is that Backpack isn't from a huge company.  It comes from 37signals which seems to have a great portfolio of products.  It is nice to see innovation sprouting on the web. 

I am also very impressed with the user interface of Backpack.  Other than some of the quirks they have for text formatting, I have zero complaints about the software.

I will be testing it with IE7 and Firefox on Windows XP and using Firefox on Ubuntu.  With a good IMAP webmail email client, my Flickr account, Typepad, and a text editor, I am good to go most of the time. I have three different websites with a tremendous amount of information on them, certainly Backpack is a better way to organize it, than my trying to create my own web pages to link various things. 

Backback lets me do it without having to concentrate on the technology.  It removes the need for your own website,  a web editor and a FTP client.

Still, some of the things which I do require more sophistication than Backpack, so I will likely continue to use iPhoto,  Photoshop, Nisus Writer, Dreamweaver, Shutterbug and Fetch for the heavier lifting, but I do not think it is too crazy to imagine what I discussed in the post, "How much longer will operating systems really matter, even to Apple?"

Just maybe with there will be enough photo and web tools with the next operating system releases, that I can live mostly on the web without knowing the technology behind what I am doing. When software achieves that , it makes my life just that much easier.

We are getting closer and closer.  It would be nice to bet on Ubuntu Linux and not have to pay OS upgrades ever again.  Of course there's always that Linux driver issue that has yet to be resolved.