Friday, July 29, 2005

Current preferences for RSS readers

I've been using RSS readers for a couple of years now to try to manage the 'River of News'.

This roughly follows the order in which I explored the world of aggregators.


  • AmphetaDesk -- web-based, runs on a server somewhere, perl-based. A nice solid news aggregator. There is a patch, AmphetaOutlines that improves the look-n-feel which I used. The only downside is it only supports RSS and not ATOM. It looks like RSS is going to win, but there are some sites out there (notably google's blogspot) that only provide ATOM feeds. I've used Amphetadesk the longest so far.

  • Sage, Thunderbird and other mozilla plugins -- nice but I don't really know when it updates.

  • Liferea -- Linux desktop, gnome-based. Nice but I found it a little buggy. It likely has improved since I last looked.

  • Straw -- Linux desktop, gnome-based. A nice client side application. The downside is it is client based and sometimes I want to check news while away from the my primary laptop.

  • bloglines.com -- A no-cost, web-based service. That's what I use these days.

  • Various Portals -- Yahoo!, MSN, Google, etc. While they do support adding RSS feeds, I just don't like how they clutter it up with other random stuff and ads. Give it a try, you may like it.



My blogroll is in various formats is available here.
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NH PySIG

I attended the first meeting of the new NH Python SIG (PySIG) in Manchester last night. About 13 folks interested in programming in python.

My two pet projects that I'd like to write in python are "pull info from a spreadsheet and set title, description, tags, etc on specific photos already hosted on Flickr.com" (to support this genealogy project) and "pull info from a Zoph (nice, but defunct) web/MySQL-based photo organizer and dump it into the next great photo organizer (F-Stop? something else?) without loosing too much data"
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Sunday, July 24, 2005

This Week's Del.icio.us bookmarks

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MarcN
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Friday, July 22, 2005

w32codecs for ubuntu 'hoary'

The stock Ubuntu repositories don't include the w32codecs (wmvdmod.dll, etc) so xine, mplayer can play WMV and other formats. Basically the package puts 127 DLLs in /usr/lib/w32codecs.

So, I temporarily added the following line to my /etc/apt/sources.list

deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ testing main

And then did this:


apt-get update && apt-get install w32codecs


I then commented that line out since and apt-get upgrade would have picked up a bunch of updated packages from that repository.
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Thursday, July 21, 2005

Migrating to Ubuntu Hoary on my laptop

I've been running Debian/Sarge (now the stable branch) on my laptop for quite a while now and its time to try a new distro for dailyl use -- Ubuntu. This week I've been running Ubuntu 'Hoary' and the transition has been very smooth.

The only configuration issue was I wanted to use ALSA on this HP Compaq nc6000 laptop. The install did detect the sound device, but did separate the speaker from
the headphone controls.

phzi on #ubuntu pointed me to the unofficial UbuntuGuide.org, specifically the section configuresoundproperly. Those instructions were perfect.
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ipodder (v2.1) on Ubuntu 'Hoary'

I'd upgraded to the latest iPodder (v2.1) on my Ubuntu ('Hoary') laptop today.

# tar jxvf iPodder-linux-2.1.tar.bz2

# cd iPodder-linux

# sudo ./install.sh

(take the defaults)

The only glitch is wx libraries aren't in the default PYTHONPATH, so set this environment variable either at the command line, or pop it in ~/.bashrc

export PYTHONPATH=/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/wx-2.5.3-gtk2-unicode/:$PYTHONPATH-unicode:$PYTHONPATH


Now clean up a little bit...


$ cd ../

$ rm -rf iPodder-linux iPodder-linux-2.1.tar.bz2


Now, you are all set to start iPodder!



$ (nohup iPodder&) # or add it to a menu bar button



Getting closer to not needing any special knowledge to get iPodder running on a GNU/Linux distro...

- - - - -

Just for searchers, this is the problem you see if you don't set the PYTHONPATH:


$ iPodder
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "iPodderGui.py", line 38, in ?
import iPodderWindows
File "/opt/iPodder/iPodderWindows.py", line 4, in ?
import listctrl as listmix
File "/opt/iPodder/listctrl.py", line 296, in ?
EVT_DOPOPUPMENU = wx.PyEventBinder(wxEVT_DOPOPUPMENU, 0)
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'PyEventBinder'
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Monday, July 18, 2005

2 unusual New Hampshire license plates



nh-license-plate-pen-iz

Originally uploaded by marcn.







nh-license-plate-bloggin

Originally uploaded by marcn.






"pen iz" and "bloggin" -- both seen in Nashua, NH in the last week or so.
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MarcN
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Thursday, July 14, 2005

Bull Surname Genealogy

The 138th Annual William Bull & Sarah Wells picnic is coming up in the next few weeks and I've been exchanging email with some distant cousins about ways to improve participation with the Bull Association and contribute genealogy info.

If you have any photos or scans of images having to do with the Bull picnic or any of the Bull descendants, please get a free flickr.com account and join the groups below. Once you have joined those groups, you'll be able to add your photos to the following groups:



Additionally, there is now a Bull Surname Genealogy wiki for contributing genealogical information. Of course from the wiki you can display and link to images you have uploaded to flickr.com
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Monday, July 11, 2005

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MarcN
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TheMovingWall -- Vietnam Veteran's Memorial replica



TheMovingWall -- Vietnam Veteran's Memorial replica

Originally uploaded by marcn.



Sunday, Logan, Addy, Emma and I visited this very moving memorial, The Moving Wall.

It will be in Goffstown, NH until Saturday, July 16th.

See the complete set.

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Kids For Democracy (NH & MA chapters)



Kids For Democracy (NH & MA chapters)

Originally uploaded by marcn.



This weekend Spencer, Griffin and Trevor (and Wendy) were down on Martha's
Vineyard with Kids For Democracy/NH.

See the complete photo set here:
Kids for Democracy (9-Jul-2005)

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Monday, July 4, 2005

Memorial for Reuben Cummings (Merrimack, NH)



Memorial for Reuben Cummings -- Merrimack's only Revolutionary War Casualty (im000419)

Originally uploaded by marcn.



In Memoriam
Reuben Cummings
June 25, 1761 September 13, 1776
Merrimack's Only Casualty of the American Revolutionary War
At age 14, enlisted as Minute Man
Fought at Battle of Bunker Hill june 17, 1775
Promoted to Drummer July 20, 1776
At age 15, he died and was buried
in the area of Ft. Ticonderoga

--
In Merrimack's Turkey Hill Graveyard
Lat: 42.85776
Lon: -71.52103

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Sunday, July 3, 2005

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MarcN
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