Stephen O'Sullivan

For those interested, I modified the pixmaps in Sam Pohlenz's Internode Usage Meter for GNOME, a Gnome panel applet that displays internet usage for those with the Australian ISP Internode, so that it better integrates with the new panel theme in Ubuntu Karmic.

In removing the colour from the applet, I also made it thinner and removed the Internode logo. The applet itself is, apart from the modified pixmaps, completely unchanged. The modified install file can be downloaded here. The applet is released under the GPL.

I don't think anyone is denying the fact of climate change, the issue has always been the impact humans have on effecting climate change. At the same time, it must be conceded that human beings have had a profound impact on the planet - building cities and damming rivers, farming the land and either introducing non-indigenous animals or significantly increasing the numbers of animals in a given area, and of course, pollution.

The debate around climate change, as far as I see it, centres on the connection between these two givens. It is easy to jump to the conclusion that they are linked, but logic dictates that we do not leap to such conclusions: if A and if B, it does not necessarily follow that A caused B.

Climate change in South East Australia, where I live, has taken the form of severe drought for over a decade, and a recent article caught my eyes. The article (link here) suggests that "SCIENTISTS studying Victoria's crippling drought have, for the first time, proved the link between rising levels of greenhouse gases and the state's dramatic decline in rainfall."

It seems the science is supporting that (not entirely) common sense view that humanity cannot have such a profound impact on the surface and atmosphere of the earth without affecting interconnected systems such as climate.

www.blogactionday.org

I recently bought an HP netbook, the brushed aluminium Mini 2140. I am currently triple-booting XP, Ubuntu 9.04 (the netbook remix, but I have switched to standard desktop) and Moblin v2 Beta.

I love the machine. It looks beautiful, the keyboard is sensational, the screen looks great, and it has features I like not found in other netbooks, such as a standard VGA out. Ubuntu Jaunty runs perfectly on it (with the exception of a bit of trouble getting my Internode 3G USB broadband working on it). Moblin also works perfectly, but given it is still in early development, it is missing some vital features I want, such as a word processor. Nice interface though.

More details later.

I have uploaded 20 photographs of day one (September 15 2008) of a three week trip to NYC, documenting a casual walk from our apartment on W17th near 6th Avenue down to Washington Square; then up to Union Square; then further to the Flatiron building and Madison Square Park; then across to Gramercy Park and back down to Union Square.

I have recently purchased a SanDisk Cruzer Micro 8GB, and have had serious (i.e. data destroyed!) issues with it. I would be interested to know if anyone else has had such issues, but I think I have also found a solution.

This USB disk is a work tool for me, and given my work environment, means it has to work with MS Windows; my home PC runs Ubuntu 8.04 Linux. I need my portable drive to, among other things, reliably move data from work to home and back. I had a 1GB micro Cruzer that worked perfectly, but I wanted more space.

In short, the issue has been that the drive has ceased to be recognised both by Windows and Ubuntu, regularly. The only way to fix this issue has been to reformat the drive. The problem has occurred so frequently, until recently, that I raise it here!

The drive comes with a load of crapware under the title "U3", which apparently makes the drive "better". I hardly have to tell the reader, but I don't want SanDisk's idea of "assisting technology", I want a bloody portable hard drive I can carry in my pocket!!! I obviously unstalled this rubbish immediately using the (admittedly convenient, though in the past, apparently not so, uninstall process). Needless to say, this rubbish was Windows only...

However, the issues I have had have been, apparently, not entirely related to this - though looking at the Windows registry its very hard to tell (Registry persists in refering to U3 - it appears that U3 is somehow inextricably linked to the drive). I found that the drive would become unrecognisable, both in Windows and Linux, after use, for some unfathomable reason, but most often, after use with Linux. And the key here was after unmounting the drive in Linux. There was no consistency, though - sometimes it would cease to be recognisable as a drive irrespective of whether I had: a) used it with Linux; or b) unmounted it or just yanked it out!

There are many comments in the net about issues with this drive (e.g. link)

My solution, which so far (a couple of weeks) has worked, was to reformat the drive to NTFS. That doesn't seem to make sense, but it has worked (remembering I have to use it with Windows as well). I suspect, without evidence, that it changes the drive as it is recognised by Windows.

I did this in Windows, but had to (of course) jump through some hurdles. It would have been easier just reformatting in Linux but, it is, for me, primarily a Windows tool, so...

Right-clicking on the drive in Windows Explorer and choosing "format" only allows, by default, FAT32. However, in Device Manager (right-click "My Computer" > "Properties", choose the tab "Hardware" and click on "Device Manager") you can go into the properties of each of your attached drives. Choose the Cruzer in the "Disk Drives" section, and in the "Policies" tab, change it from "Optimise for quick removal" to the only other option, "optimise for performance". This will allow you to reformat the drive to NTFS.

Irrespective, I no longer unmount the drive in Linux - once I am more than sure all the tranfers have occurred, I just pull it out...