Utah Open Source Planet

I’m still a little miffed I can’t sync my Centro with my KDE PIM suite, but I did just today find a reason to increase my love for the Fedora Project.

With previous versions of Fedora (and RHEL/CentOS), I’ve had to manually build some Perl modules like DBIx::Class and Catalyst. Lo and behold, there exists a handy-dandy perl-DBIx-Class package in the standard Fedora repositories.

What a complete and awesome joy it was to watch perl-DBIx-Class download and install along with the 45 or so dependencies it required. It’s so nice to not have to build that manually with cpan2rpm anymore!

I've been pretty happy with Fedora 10... until last night. That's when I hooked up my Palm Centro and tried to sync it with the kdepim apps.

It seems the usually-reliable kpilot has been replaced with a synchronization system based on opensync. I only wish it worked half as well as kpilot did.

So, I am at a crossroads, of sorts. I can either roll back to Fedora 8 and run KDE 3.5 where kpilot works nicely or I can get involved with the opensync.org folks and get the Palm synchronization code fixed/finished.

Fedora 10 was released 25 November (earlier this week), a mere six months after Fedora 9 made its debut. The Fedora community has been hard at work improving the distribution which is the descendant of Fedora Core and Red Hat Linux.

Looking over the release notes, it's obvious a lot of changes have been in the works. To name a few:

• A new graphical boot system named Plymoth displays a simple, but effective boot progress screen that leaves old-school hackers like me feeling left out on the details.
• PulseAudio has been rewritten to be "glitch-free." Makes you wonder why they didn't think of that in the first place. Having played (tried to play) Quake III with Fedora 9, I sincerely hope the experience under Fedora 10 is indeed, glitch-free.
• As a KDE user, I am excited to see a more improved KDE4 platform. The kdepim package has been upgraded to 4.x so I hope to be enjoying a new kontact experience.
• There's a new desktop alternative called LXDE. I'll have to try that out. It's a lightweight desktop which makes it perfect for those VNC sessions that come in handy from time to time.
• My kids are already enjoying the new, improved versions of Extreme Tux Racer, Super Tux Kart, and other Fedora-bundled games.

But, unfortunately, I suck

About six weeks ago, I got involved with the Fedora Documentation Project with the aim of making a contribution to my prefered Linux distribution. After a handful of false-starts, I never did get acclimated to the contribution process, which involves learning about git (distributed version control), Fedora's docbook XML, the documentation project trac system, and Fedora's wiki-based stuff. I probably got about 80% through the process of learning how it all works but never got over the hump and actually started doing it.

My goal is to do that and be an active contributor for Fedora 11 and beyond. At the same time, I hope the documentation project leaders make an effort to decrease the "pain of entry" for those who may have lots to contribute but lack the experience working with the required tools.

Installing Fedora 10

I've installed Fedora 10 on four systems so far: three desktops and a laptop. On two of those, I did a network install by burning a bootable CD with the images/boot.iso image provided on the DVD.

One thing I noticed that is different doing network installs with Fedora 10 is that the network source can't just be a path to the ISO file. Instead, it needs to be the "exploded" ISO file directory structure. That's a little inconvenient as I don't like having to store the ISO and its exploded filesystem on my server resulting in about 9GB of used space instead of the normal 4.5GB.

Anaconda, the Fedora installer, has seen some subtle changes over the last couple of releases. One significant change is that the installer writes partition changes and formats filesystems much earlier in the installation process instead of waiting until package selection is finished.

Another change is the introduction of encrypted filesystem options. I haven't played with that yet.

One thing that is glaringly absent from Fedora 10 is the images/diskboot.img file which I have used in the past to create small bootable installation media using a USB flash drive.

It seems there is a way to do it still but you have to download a Live CD image (about 700MB) and use some commands to turn the Live CD ISO image into a bootable image you can write to a USB drive. There's lots of room for improvement here!

The systems I've installed on are as follows:

• HP desktop, Intel P4 2.8Ghz, 512MB RAM, integrate i82865G graphics, 160GB SATA drive
• Generic desktop, AMD Athlon 64 3800+, 1GB RAM, GeForce 6150LE integrated graphics, 80GB drive
• Generic desktop, AMD Athlon XP 2500+, 1.3GB RAM, GeForce FX 5500 video, 2x 80GB drives
• Dell Latitude D830N laptop, 2.6Ghz Core-Duo, 2GB RAM, NVidia Quadro graphics, 160GB SATA

Running Fedora 10

The only real problem I've encountered is on the HP desktop with games that required OpenGL accelerated graphics. Those games worked well on Fedora 8, but do not run accelerated on Fedora 10. Running glxinfo indicates direct rendering support is enabled, so I'm not sure what I need to do to get it working. If anyone has ideas, I'd love to hear them. Plus, my kids will enjoy playing SuperTuxKart on that computer again.

This weekend, I installed Scalix on a client's mail server. I had installed Scalix before, but it was a clean install with no old e-mail to migrate. This time, however, I had a lot of old e-mail to migrate.

Most of the users used Eudora for Windows. Others used the openwebmail web mail client. As a result, I had e-mail from three different sources to populate with:

• Eudora locally-saved mailboxes (an almost mbox-format)
• IMAP folders on the server, in mbox format
• Standard mbox mailspool boxes (inboxes).

In preparation, I had read on a page on the Scalix site there were scripts to import mbox files into Scalix, but as it turned out, these scripts were for restoring a proprietary-to-Scalix backup mailbox format. Bleh.

The next best solution was to use an e-mail client that could import mbox mailboxes and move the messages to an IMAP folder. Thunderbird only imports a few formats on Windows and only imports Netscape Communicator on Linux. Bleh.

So, I tried kmail. It worked beautifully. At one point, I had three instances of kmail running in three different VNC sessions on the server funneling messages into Scalix. The only problem with kmail is that it required constant babysitting as I moved from mailbox to mailbox and user to user.

So, while kmail was cranking along on a large mailbox, I looked at CPAN to see what modules were available for dealing with IMAP and mbox file formats. It didn't take long before I had a script that would upload a user's messages. That worked great for the mbox mailspool files- there was one file per user.

Next were the IMAP/webmail mailboxes. I had copied them all into separate folders for each user, so to automate it, I needed a script that could go into each user folder and upload the messages from each of the mailboxes it found there. However, there were some mailboxes I didn't want to upload (e.g. Spam, Virus, Trash boxes). Others, I needed to rename to go into Scalix equivalents.

The following Perl script is what I came up with.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use Smart::Comments;
use Mail::IMAPClient;
use Mail::Box::Mbox;

my $users = [
    {   username   =>  'user1',
        password   =>  'password1', },
    {   username   =>  'user2',
        password   =>  'password2', }, ];

my $folder_translation = {
    'sent-mail'     =>  'Sent Items',
    'sentmail'      =>  'Sent Items',
    'saved-drafts'  =>  'Drafts',
    'saved-messages'=>  'Drafts',
};

my $ignore_folders = [ 
    'spam-mail', 
    'virus-mail', 
    'mail-trash', 
    'Junk',
    'Junk E-mail', 
    'Trash', ];

foreach my $user (@$users) { 
    if( -d "/export/imap/$user->{'username'}") {

        warn "Looking at $user->{'username'}\n";
        my $imap = Mail::IMAPClient->new(  
            Server => 'mail.example.com',
            User    => $user->{'username'} . '@example.com',
            Password=> $user->{'password'},) or 
            die "Could not log in as $user->{'username'}";

       
        opendir DH, "/export/imap/$user->{'username'}";
        my @files = readdir DH;

        FILELOOP:
        foreach my $file (@files) {
            if($file !~ m/^\./) {   # Skip hidden
                foreach my $ign (@$ignore_folders) {
                    if($file eq $ign) {
                        warn "Ignoring $file\n";
                        next FILELOOP;
                    }
                }
                my $translated_name = $file;
                foreach my $tr_key (keys %$folder_translation) {
                    if($tr_key eq $file) {
                        $translated_name = $folder_translation->{$tr_key};
                    }
                }

                # Ready to upload messages
                warn "Uploading $file to $translated_name\n";

                my $folder = Mail::Box::Mbox->new(
                    folder => '/export/imap/' . $user->{'username'} .  '/' . $file);

                my @folders = $imap->folders();
                if(! grep /^$translated_name$/, @folders) {
                    $imap->create($translated_name);
                }

                foreach my $msg ($folder->messages) { ### Uploading msgs |===[%]           |
                    my $uid = $imap->append($translated_name, $msg->string);
                    if(! $uid) {
                        warn "Could not append message\n";
                    }
                }

                $folder->close() or warn "Could not close Mbox connection $@\n";
            }
        }
        closedir DH;

        $imap->disconnect() or warn "Could not close IMAP connection $@\n";
    }
    else {
        next;
    }

}

This country -- the product of reason -- could not survive on the morality of sacrifice. It was not built by men who sought self-immolation or by men who sought handouts... It could not live by the mystic doctrine that damned this earth as evil and those who succeeded on earth as depraved. From its start, this country was a threat to the ancient rule of mystics. In the brilliant rocket-explosion of its youth, this country displayed to an incredulous world what greatness was possible to man, what happiness was possible on earth. It was one or the other: America or mystics. The mystics knew it; you didn't. You let them infect you with the worship of need -- and this country became a giant in body with a mooching midget in place of its soul, while its living soul was driven underground to labor and feed you in silence, unnamed. unhonored, negated, its soul and hero: the industrialist...

-- Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"

As a constitutional conservative, I am generally disappointed with the gains the progressive Democrats have made in the U.S. Senate and House Of Representatives. I'm also disappointed that we are now faced with four years of leadership by Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Many of my online colleagues -- members of the "young geek" crowd -- were vocal advocates for Obama during the presidential campaign. I admire their conviction, dedication and involvement in a political campaign. Normally, I don't think they would pay that much attention to a presidential race, but because of the state the country is in and because Mr. Obama has proved to be attractive to young voters, there is an unusually strong sentiment for him in these young, technologically-aware voters.

The Obama campaign seemed to have run a much better Internet campaign than anyone ever before. Many lessons can be learned from this by all who hope or plan to participate in a political campaign in the future.

I'm not entirely upset republicans lost races. As a good friend of mine remarked, "The GOP needs to be benched for four years," to get their bearings.

Many political commentators have observed today's republicans are not the same as republicans from 20-30 years ago. My observation is republicans are generally a lot further left of conservative than they used to be. I suppose the same could be said about the democrats: They are also a lot further left than they used to be. Without a significant pull to th right, we are looking at a significant policy shift toward socialism.

Because of this, the Republican Party either needs to return to its conservative roots or we will need to create a new major conservative party to keep conservative interests represented.

The key to enacting a shift back toward the right, I believe, is education and study. For example, I've been involved with the Free Capitalist Project for the last several weeks and have found it to be an excellent step in the right direction.

There seems to be many organizations with similar values and goals. The trick will be getting many of these organizations to cooperate toward a common goal.

The first step, I believe, is helping more people to understand (or to become reaquainted) with some of the basics of the founding of our country.

Life, Liberty, Healthcare, Education, Bailouts, Income Protection, and the Pursuit of Happiness?!

Quoting from "The Law" by Frederic Bastiat:

Once you understand the rightful place for the government, or "the law," you will begin to see why our government is... well, askew.

Someone told me recently they felt it was the government's proper role to "improve our lives." That fallacy is a popular one, but it is a fallacy nonetheless. It is, however, the government's rightful place to protect your ability to improve your own life. That distinction is significant!

These fundamental principles were employed by those that penned their names on our Declaration of Independence in 1776 and participated in the writing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787.

I implore all those who read these words I've written to stop and ponder them. Read "The Law" yourself -- it's available for free from several sites in HTML or PDF formats and does an excellent job of explaining these things in a way that's easy to understand and digest.

Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box by Arbinger Institute

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow. What an amazing, enlightening, inspiring book.

I've never read a book that seems targeted at business management technique or strategy that read like a novel. While the plot of this novel is a bit shallow, it makes the material so much easier to read and absorb.

As I read this book, it occurred to me the authors are really saying the key to all productive relationships is humility. But, that's just too vague of a concept (and would make for a much shorter book), so they broke it down into cause and effect discussions from multiple angles to demonstrate evidence of its truthfulness.

I can't help feeling the urge to purchase a copy of this book for every one in my family and those I work with. It's that profound.

View all my reviews on GoodReads.com.

If you ran a business and the walls figuratively came crashing down around you like they have in the United States economy the last few months, what would you do?

You could just call it quits and walk away.

You could make calls into every person you know and beg them for help and support.

There are many directions you could go, but there is one thing I can't imagine anyone would do: try to go on living like nothing has happened.

The problems in our financial markets and talk within the ranks of legislative and executive leadership of propping up failed institutions have brought to light another very glaring miscalculation: The U.S. government is already in a terrible amount of debt. These are all signs of the seriousness of the situation we are in. These signs suggest a calculated, careful, well thought-out response.

More importantly, these signs demand that we, as a people, forget political loyalties, forget the frivolity of our lifestyles, forget luxury and conveniences, and forget about the thoughts of others.

We must concentrate on one thing: Getting through this together in one piece. That means making serious sacrifices and planning for the future.

Why, during all that is going on, do I see that the U.S. Mint has announced a forthcoming set of commemorative pennies to celebrate Abraham Lincoln's 200^th birthday?

It's not much in the grand scheme of things, but this is a perfect example of how government is just going on doing what it has always done when it should be doing much, much less.

The U.S. Mint operations should probably scale back to one standard set of coin and paper currency. The U.S. Postal Service could probably minimize postal options. The U.S. Department of Transportation could make a quick decision of which construction projects currently underway can be suspended immediately, which projects can be brought to a point at which they can be suspended, and how costs can be minimized on other projects.

Everything our government does needs to be assessed and evaluated for fat that can be trimmed so that only essential services are provided. programs will need to be scrapped, shut down, or scaled back. To help those in need who have traditionally relied on government services or assistance, groups outside the government will need to step forward and help.

The failed businesses have failed. Propping them up will cost more money. Figuring out why they failed will cost more money. Reorganizing them, placing them in a conservatorship will all cost more money. Money... money we don't have and can't afford to keep borrowing.

Can we set an example, as a country, for what should be done?

I hope so.

Can you believe the hypocrisy, lies, and just all-out lack of respect the media, blogosphere, and the far-left are demonstrating with regard to Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin?

Here's an example of a blatant disregard of the facts.

On his television show last night, Glenn Beck had a short segment where he debunks some of the flat-out ridiculous crap Barack Obama has said about Palin. Beck laid it all out and told it like it is. Here's part of the transcript.

Today, John McCain announced his choice of running mate in the presidential race to be Sarah Palin, current governor of Alaska.

In my opinion, this is the smartest thing McCain could have done, short of bringing Mitt Romney or Ron Paul on board.

Good job John McCain. This brings me significantly closer to actually supporting the guy.

We promised we'd at least try to get some audio and video from UTOSC up as quickly as possible, so I'm sitting here at my computers waiting for my Windows computer to write a modified 23GB AVI so I can start editing the video for the keynote presentations tonight.

So, while that slow process continues, I'll write a little about how today went.

Well, for me, it began very STRESSFULLY!

I went over to Salt Lake Community College (where UTOSC is being held) on Wednesday afternoon to get things set up for shooting video starting Thursday and to help with other UTOSC-related tasks as I am a UTOSC core team member. At 4:30 p.m., a client called me to tell me their server just went down. Right after the call, the Nagios alerts came into my phone saying the same thing. Nick was with me, so I sent him out to get their server back up while I continued setting up equipment. I figured it just needed to be powered back up or something, but we weren't so lucky this time.

This particular server has been pesky and super-sensitive ever since we installed it, making it an annoyance for both us and the client. We weren't really every sure what the problem was, but I strongly suspected the motherboard was just bad even though it worked most of the time.

Nick couldn't get the server to do much. It would love the RAID controller BIOS and then reboot, or it wouldn't display anything at all on the monitor. Finally, I told him to just remove the server and bring it to me and I'd work on it later at home.

Later, when I got the server to my house, I could not get it to do anything. It would power up, but would not POST. I tried all the usual tricks: removing the power cables, disconnecting the motherboard power connector, resetting the CMOS power jumper, chanting a voodoo chant. Nothing worked, so this morning, I made replacing the motherboard my first task. I had hoped I'd be able to get it done quickly and still make it to SLCC to be of some help in the preparation for UTOSC to start at 12:30.

I made it to Universal Systems around 9:00 and they had one socket 1207 motherboard in stock, a Supermicro H8DME-2 dual-processor board. I guess I was pretty lucky they had one. I knew USI was more of an Intel shop, but I thought they'd have more than one AMD board for sale. Lucky for me, they had one. It wasn't cheap, but it was a Supermicro so that's generally a good thing.

I took the server and the new board back to the office and proceeded to install it. The Supermicro board was an EATX board which means it's about as huge as a motherboard can be. The I-Star case I was installing it in could take an EATX motherboard, but it was a tight fit. It took me about an hour or so to get the new board in, everything connected, and powered up. The box didn't have a manual in it, so I downloaded a PDF and printed off the necessary pages for jumpers and connectors.

The LSI Logic RAID controller really slowed down the boot process. I eventually just yanked it out of its PCI-X slot so I could get through BIOS and boot-up issues without waiting.

The Supermicro motherboard had a different onboard SATA chipset than the old board, so I had to install a new initial RAMdisk (initrd) for the Linux kernel. The server was running Fedora Core 6, which I didn't have any media handy for, so I downloaded a rescue disk ISO and burned it to a CD. I ripped a CD drive out of an old desktop so I could boot to the rescue disk. This, of course, all took a little time... more than I anticipated. Finally, I got the system booting by getting the new initial RAMdisk installed by way of the rescue CD. Then, I realized I had to reconfigure the networking for the server because it used a bonded ethernet configuration. All the ethernet addresses would be different, so I had to go through a tedious process of making Fedora Core forget the information it had stored about the previous ethernet ports and learn about the new ones. Finally, I had a system that was ready to go back to the client and it was about ten minutes before noon.

Things went relatively well at the client's office. I had to do a couple other little things to get things working the way they should, but I was out of there shortly after 12:30. All the hustling made me a little shakey, so I hit a local Maverik and got some hot cheesy bread. I made it back to SLCC a little before 1.

Matt Asay was well into his presentation, but Nick had both cameras rolling and I stepped in on one and took control.

Everything else throughout the day went, I thought, very smooth. We shot video for Nathan Blackham's Nagios presentation and would have shot video for Jared Smith's Asterisk presentation, but it got moved to Friday. As a result, we had a little extra time and I would have rounded up a couple people to do some on-camera interviews, but I didn't bother to shave and looked like a wild man, so we didn't do that. Instead, we loaded up the equipment and moved over to the Student Center to get set up for the evening keynote presentation.

It was good we headed over there early. It was more work than either Nick or I expected packing our equipment up, moving it, and setting it back up, so we learned a lot from that.

Dinner was pretty good. More people should have attended the dinner and the keynote presentations. A lot of people did, but I still saw empty chairs. It seems like the SLCC students didn't make it out en force to the dinner and they should have. Free food!

I got home a little after 10 p.m. and started working on this video. Now it's about 12:30 and I'm done talking about my day and this video conversion thing is still going. We'll have to see if I have the patience to get this out tonight. If nothing else, I'll get audio from the presentations to someone to make them available.

While the Democrat-led congress vacations, tensions between the U.S. and Russia have spiked as Russia has engaged in military operations inside the neighboring country Georgia. Many people I talk to have no idea why Russia has taken this action, what it means to the United States, or what it means, period.

Georgia is a small country just south of the western region of Russia. It borders the Black Sea on the west and Ajerbaijan to the east. Turkey and Armenia lie to its south.

As an aside, my paternal grandmother and her family left Armenia and came to the United States of America during the early 1900s to escape the invasion and (alleged) genocide by the Turks.

This region is no stranger to conflict. It would seen the unification of the USSR during the 20th century was one of the most peaceful times for the region. However, the people lacked freedom.

Since the fall of the old Soviet government, Georgia was established as a sovereign nation independent of Russia. At first, the new government was rife with corruption, but that began to change when Mikheil Saakashvili took office as president in early 2004. Saakashvili studied law in the United States in the 1990s and has strived to establish a very US-like domestic policy. Since becoming president, Georgia has risen to number 18 in term of ease of doing business, according to the World Bank. Georgia has also been named the top economic reformer country in the world.

Georgia's domestic policies are pretty revolutionary by US standards. Saakashvili has implemented a low 12-percent flat tax and frequently talks about the need for government to "get out of the way" of business so they can operate and grow unfettered by regulation.

Relations between Russia and Georgia have been tense over the years. Georgia's close ties with the United States, it's petition to be admitted as a member nation in NATO, and it's free market economy have not sat well with Russian officials. Georgia also cooperated with Turkey and Azerbaijan to build and operate an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea that would compete directly with Russian oil pipelines.

Finally, there's the issue of the South Ossetia province. This is a province in north-central Georgia that borders Russia. The Ossetians have expressed interest in becoming an independent breakaway state. Saakashvili has instead granted South Ossetia full autonomy as a state under the Georgian federal government.

Reportedly, a majority of South Ossetians hold Russian passports and Russia has claimed one reason for their military movement into Georgia was to protect their citizens. What isn't widely reported is that Russia offered free passports to the people of South Ossetia.

While the situation in South Ossetia is difficult to understand, what is clear is that Russia's move into Georgia was far more than a "reaction" to Georgia's actions. Not only that, but Russian military has gone much further into Georgia than just the contested lands of South Ossetia.

What is clear is that Russia is no longer the timid, floundering democracy it was during the 1990s. Under Vladamir Putin, Russia has amassed large amounts of wealth and power through the oil exploration and production. Russia is again poised to be a formidable military world power and its alliances with China, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and Libya paint a pretty clear picture of which side they're on relative to the United States.

Nicolas Sarkozy of France had his own Neville Chamberlain moment last week as he negotiated a cease-fire with Russia, but the fighting continued and Russian military incursion further into Georgia continued after Sarkozy returned to France with a false sense of accomplishment.

The United States has formally admonished Russia for its role in the South Ossetian hostilities and has insisted Russian military action must stop at once and Russian troops should leave Georgia. Secretary Of State Condoleeze Rice personally went to the Georgian capitol of Tbilisi late this last week to help broker a peace plan and was successful in getting parties to sign a peace plan.

I think there are many things we can learn from what has happened in Georgia this last week or so.

Oil is power. While one of the major issues in the 2008 US election season is oil and energy, Democrats in congress are very reluctant to increase domestic oil exploration and/or production. Presidential candidate Barack Obama insists alternatives to fossil fuels are the only energy sources we should be investing in. Meanwhile, other countries such as Russia, Venezuela, and China are growing their oil production at record pace. As a result, these countries are collecting large amounts of wealth and power while we here in the US watch the value of our currency languish.

One of the concerns on the left of the oil issue is that oil drilling, production, refinement, and consumption impact the environment negatively. While there is little doubt that is true, I find it hard to believe Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, and others who would use their increased power against the United States are currently going about their petroleum business with an eye on environmental impact. If there is any country on the planet that can set the standard for clean, responsible, and environmentally sensitive exploration, production, and use of fossil fuels, it is the United States of America. But, instead, we seem poised on tying our own hands and watching our economy crumble.

The United States is beginning to look like it's "all talk." Georgia has committed thousands of troops to fight alongside the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its desire to be a NATO member country represents a great deal of where its alliances lie. If the NATO member nation is attacked, it is expected that other member nations of NATO would respond in kind to its aid and defense. Aside from formally issuing a few words critical of Russia, sending some humanitarian aid, and putting Secretary Rice on the ground in Tbilisi, we're looking pretty impotent next to Russia's tanks, missiles, and planes.

Russia is back. You'd better believe it. Saakashvili said recently in an interview he believed the bombs Russia was dropping on Georgia were meant for us. "This is for America. This is for NATO. This is for Bush," Saakashvili said were (figuratively) inscribed on the bombs dropped on his country.

Some critics of this theory say Saakashvili attacked South Ossetia first and Russia just responded to protect its citizens. The shear size of their "response" invalidates this theory. Something that big had to have been planned weeks in advance.

What do you think?

Unlike many people I know, mostly women for some reason, I didn't go to a August 2nd midnight release party for Stephenie Meyer's latest book, "Breaking Dawn". No, I just pre-ordered it on Amazon and checked for its arrival every day starting on August 2nd. It didn't arrive until the 6th or 7th, those jerks!

This is the fourth book in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series and it apparently ends the series as we know it. Meyer has hinted we may see some followup books that may repeat the stories in the previous books, but from a different character's perspective. I think the soil is fertile also for future books about other characters from the stories.

So, I liked this book. I think I could have liked it a lot more, but after three amazing, best-selling novels, my theory is Stephenie Meyer knew she didn't have to work that hard. As a result of her laziness, the story isn't as imaginative as the first three and the writing isn't as rich.

That being said, I have to admit Stephenie Meyer could write 750 pages of Bella Swan walking alone on a dirt road thinking to herself and I'd just lap it all up with glee. For the most part, I love the characters in the Twilight series, especially Bella, and could tolerate a lot of stuff as long as Stephenie Meyer writes about Bella.

A couple days after the book was released, my wife told me that one of her coworkers told her they'd seen where someone had fashioned a message using plastic cups in the chain link fencing on a highway overpass that read "Bella dies!"

Well, that kind of spoiled it for me!

This being a vampire story, however, death isn't necessarily the end of a character's story. While I'm sure the sight of that plastic cup message caused a lot of people's hearts to skip a beat, I don't think it's really that big of a spoiler.

The Twilight series is aimed at young adults, but "Breaking Dawn" is definitely more of an adult book. than your standard young adult novel. While the adult themes are vague and lacking in the details you might find in a trashy paperback romance novel, this probably isn't a book I'd recommend to anyone under 15.

That being said, I think Stephenie did a marvelous job of writing more mature material without necessarily offending too many of her virtue-obsessed readers (Meyer is Mormon and has a significant Mormon readership).

There were a few points in the book where I found myself closing the book and mouthing "Holy ****!" because I couldn't believe what I had just read. While some of the other reviews I've read indicated they thought the story was very predictable, I guess I fell right into it and lapped it up so much I didn't see what others plainly saw coming.

I didn't like what happens to Jacob in this book, but I'm not sure what Meyer could have done differently. Maybe she could have let him have what he wanted (Bella) and then kill him. Yeah! No, I can't see her doing that.

I also didn't like the way Charlie was handled. It seemed... too easy.

The "monsters" in "Breaking Dawn" seemed a lot less frightning, with a couple exceptions, than in the previous books and my theory on that goes back to Meyer's unfortunate laziness. Just about every monster-character seems to embody civility and control, unlike in previous stories. That is a bit of a let-down because I found the contrast of behavior between the monsters, the humans, and the exceptional monsters to be a major component of the stories. In Breaking Dawn, not so much. Even the amazing, spectacular, "monstrous" things that happen to Bella are conveniently downplayed and controlled like they're no big deal.

Buy your copy today at Amazon!

How often do you make a difference in other people's lives? I often feel I don't make much of a difference in anyone's lives, mostly because I often seem to be on auto-pilot, tending to my own affairs and minding my own business. Some people, on the other hand, make it their life's work to help others in need.

I'm not suggesting that we should all beat ourselves up for not being more charitable or supportive, but I would like to share something I did that I know will help someone out who is a tough spot. The good news is that you can do the same exact thing!

Monica Ramos and Patty Compean

I don't think many people have heard the story of Monica Ramos and Patty Compean. Their husbands are serving time in prison, currently in solitary confinement. I believe they were unfairly convicted and sentenced for crimes they did not commit.

I first heard about this story on the radio and Glenn Beck has talked a lot about it. However, don't be misled into believing this is a conservative or Republican issue. No, this is an American issue and a case where the government has conspired against its own people.

You can read the story that landed Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean in jail on Wikipedia or a number of other sites. The short version of the story is this: Ramos and Compean were border guards working the US-Mexico border in Texas. In 2005, they were in pursuit of a drug smuggler who fled after they stopped his van (which was full of drugs). There was a shot fired, and the smuggler ran away. While it appeared no one got hurt, the smuggler was apparently struck in the buttock with the bullet. Later, the US government granted the smuggler immunity for his testimony against Compean and Ramos on charges they covered up the shooting and acted out of order. The immunity included a border crossing pass and while the trial was underway, the smuggler was apprehended again with a another load of drugs, but let go because he had immunity. In addition, it appears the US government paid for medical treatment for his gunshot wound.

After Ramos and Compean were sentenced to prison, their attorneys, of course, filed appeals. Meanwhile, members of congress, talk radio personalities, and concerned individuals in Texas and around the country, started digging up as much information as they could about the case. It was revealed the US district attorney that prosecuted the case lied repeatedly about the evidence and the circumstances surrounding the case. During the trial, he requested and was granted that information about the drug smuggler would be sealed so that the jury would not discover he had been caught smuggling a second load of drugs since the original incident.

The appeal was finally read by a panel of the 5th circuit court of appeals about five months ago. Those in attendance of the hearings said the judges were very concerned that the case was mishandled and chastised the prosecuting attorneys for prosecuting on ridiculous charges, and generally bungling the case so badly. However, five months later, just a week or two ago, the court upheld the sentences and only dropped minor charges against the men.

Many believe these men are political prisoners and that the fault goes clear to the White House. The US attorney general has longtime ties with Alberto Gonzales and President George W. Bush. Congress and others have asked President Bush to commute or pardon these men who were just trying to do their jobs as border guards, but he has done nothing and has said nothing.

Others believe the Mexican government is involved as well. Why? I don't know.

It is terrible that these men are in prison, but many don't realize the suffering their families have been going through. Both men are married and have children. These families no longer have a primary breadwinner and must deal with the stress and emotional trauma of having a loved unjustly imprisoned.

It probably goes without saying, Monica Ramos and Patty Compean are hurting-- financially, mentally, emotionally, and otherwise.

A local talk radio host in Houston set up a fundraiser to help these families and word got to Glenn Beck. He had both women on his radio show last week and asked one how much her rent was that she was struggling to pay. She told him it was $11,000 or so for the year. Glenn told her he would be writing her a personal check for $11,000 and would write one in the same amount for the other family.

I've followed this story for months and was heartbroken to hear that the families were struggling. One of the women said her son had been persecuted at school and that is one of the reasons they had moved. I was ready to donate some money myself even before Glenn announced his donation.

So, today, I wrote two checks. One to Patty Compean and one to Monica Ramos. I don't have the kind of money Glenn Beck does, but I sent fifty dollars and I'm sure it will help with something. Hopefully, I can make this a regular thing, sending a little money every month. I hope many others are doing the same thing. These families will suffer regardless of how much money people send because they can't be with the husbands/fathers they love, but the money will help make it just a little easier.

If you are touched as I have been, you can send a donation as well. Edd Henndee, one of the talk radio hosts in Houston, is collecting the donations and delivering them to the families. He asks that people make out two separate checks, one to Monica Ramos, one to Patty Compean, and mail them to:

Edd Henndee
Taste of Texas
10505 Katy Freeway
Houston, Texas 77024

A couple nights ago, I posted a quick entry here about Barack Obama on domestic oil.

Levi Pearson, a friend and a fellow local geek, got right on my case about some issues he had with what I said and left some comments. He had some really good points and most people will miss out on these because now they're buried in the thread of comments attached to the original article.

Also, this weekend, Pete Ashdown, owner of Utah Internet service provider XMission and former candidate for US Senate, posted a status update on his Facebook site that the Salt Lake Tribune had published an opinion piece he wrote about Utah's national GOP delegation and their... seemingly hypocritical grandstanding on energy and domestic oil production issues.

As a result of the back-and-forth with Levi and Pete, and my own research and introspection, I decided it would be best to write another entry explaining what I've learned and what I've concluded.

I'll admit, looking over what I originally wrote in my previous entry, it was a fluff piece. I was ranting without any facts or figures to back me up. That's not to say I think I was wrong. In fact, I think I've found information to back me up.

Pete's opinion piece was a pretty level-headed argument that Utah's GOP representatives (and presumed congressman-elect) and senators are unfairly pointing fingers at democrats and generally just adding to the dysfunction that is our congress.

Rob Bishop

I completely agree with Pete that Sen. Hatch and Sen. Bennett have way too much non-action under their belt to answer for to be out touting their newly discovered position on energy policy. This is especially the case for Hatch who has plenty of seniority. They both need to be voted out of office as soon as possible, in my opinion.

Rep. Bishop, I actually like. I looked at his voting record both since the Democrats have gained majority control of congress and before and found, while he treads a little closer to the party line than I would like, he votes the way I would like on most issues.

Now, I was concerned that I saw he vote NO on a bill last year (HR 6), the Creating Long-term Energy Alternatives for the Nation act. This sounds like the kind of bill I would want an elected official representing our state to vote for, but then I looked at the details. This was one of the "first 100 hours" bills that Pelosi pushed when the Democrats first took control and contains broad, sweeping legislation to enact price controls on oil companies, remove select subsidies and deductions given to oil and natural gas producers, and add taxes on oil imports and domestic production to fund investment in alternative fuels and alternative energy.

California representative Wally Herger had some remarks on this legislation that were spot-on:

"A truly balanced energy bill would begin with the serious problem of record gas prices and reducing America's dependence on foreign sources of energy and then proceed with creating incentives that would unleash the power of American inventiveness and creativity in order to develop the next generation of energy technology and supplies. H.R. 6 relies on an outdated and failed belief that Washington knows best. Over 1,000 pages of legislative text contains little in the way of broad-based incentives, but is chock-full of new regulations and a higher tax burden, which will do little, if anything, for consumers. A better approach would get Washington out of the way and allow market-oriented solutions to provide for an affordable, diverse, and secure energy supply for America."
-- 17 December 2007

Another representative, Don Young of Alaska made a more ideological remark about the proposed legislation.

"I am wearing this red shirt today; it's the color of the bill that we are debating, communist red. It is a taking."
-- 23 January 2007

Anyway, back to Pete's article! It's probably just a coincidence this opinion piece came out the Sunday after a group of House republicans took to the floor of the house after the House had adjourned, to protest Pelosi not allowing an up or down vote on a bill that would allow more domestic oil production. Rob Bishop was the only member of the Utah delegation to join this group and I applaud him for standing on the issue like he did.

Where was Chris Cannon? Who cares? There's a reason he got tossed in the primaries and his absence almost says it all.

Jason Chaffetz

Pete threw a barb at Jason Chaffetz for going on a trip to Alaska telling the press he believes all our energy woes are attributable to the democrats. I agree with Pete that such a comment is, well, stupid. I went and looked for a media report on Chaffetz's comments. Sure enough, it's a pretty glaring comment and shows Chaffetz is, in some regard, just like every other person who has ever run for office and made vague, unsubstantiated criticisms of the opposition party.

"There's no doubt that Democrats are the problem. We've done what they've suggested, and look at the results -- since (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi took over, gas prices have doubled,"
-- 18 July 2008

I know enough about the factors that have fed into the rising gas prices over the last five years to know that a Democrat majority in congress beginning January 2007 isn't to blame. However, I do think the factors that led to the Democrat Party wresting power from the Republicans is part of the problem.

That being said, Chaffetz was quoted in the same article saying something that reminded me why I'm glad I helped make him the GOP nominee for the congressional race:

"We have to explore every facet of development that's available -- wind, solar, hydro, nuclear -- we have to move forward on all fronts."

Pete's proposed solution... Re-run Carter?

Pete praised Jimmy Carter (which makes me a little worried about Pete) and his energy policy.

"It is more revealing to look further back to the much-maligned President Carter who, in 1979, during the first oil crunch, set goals for our country so we'd never see a second energy crisis. "Carter proposed that U.S. automakers attain a whopping 48-mile-per-gallon fuel efficiency by 1995. He demanded that we curtail imported oil by imposing fees. Finally, Carter proposed windfall taxes on oil companies to fund alternative energy and a goal of generating 20 percent of our power from solar by 2000. "

I think we now know solar power still isn't a viable source of "core" electric power. Otherwise, Pete would be running XMission on solar power, right? I've read some estimates that solar power might begin to be viable in as little as five years. I think it's fair to say President Carter's plan was a wee bit unrealistic.

And then there's Carter's "double-edged plan" to impose fees or tariffs on imported oil and then tax the heck out of domestic oil compnnies or penalize their profits.

I fail to see how this would have helped anything or how doing the same thing today would help anything. All this would do is hurt consumers more (with even higher prices at the pump) and possibly result in gasoline shortages.

Hurray for Jimmy Carter!

Oh, and while we're talking about windfall profits, consider that oil companies make about 8.5% profit. If that's going to be considered a windfall profit, what happens to companies in other industries like Publishing (34% average profit), Health Care Facilities (48% average profit), or Hotels (10.6% average profit)?!

Generally, I agree with Pete that we need to do something big, akin to the Apollo program or the Manhattan project, to get our country into a better energy situation. I also believe it will take years to accomplish the goal.

I believe the solution is for the government to get out of the way of business, within reason. Pete seems to think a massive government program is called for and he even insinuates that we may need a repeat of The Great Depression before the public agrees with him.

Maybe the ideal solution is something in between.

Levi and relief from gasoline prices

Levi criticized my claim that simple policy changes could lower gas prices to as low as $3.00/gallon or $2.50/gallon. That would represent a 33 to 42 percent drop in price. Yeah... Levi... I think you're right on this one. I don't know what I was smoking, but that's clearly quite a long shot.

That being said, I do believe that a combination of Summer driving season ending within the next month and, possibly, congressional policy changes on increased domestic production, could very well result in lower gas prices. Perhaps a more realistic estimate would be 10-15%. That would bring us down to the neighborhood of $3.65/gallon. You won't be hearing much complaining from me if that happens.

Levi, facts, media, and Glenn

One thing in Levi's comments really hit me hard:

"Most of my googling turned up articles reporting on opinion polls, which show that a majority of respondents believe that drilling for oil will reduce gas prices in the short-term. This, frankly, disgusts me. We're not lemmings, we should get facts and draw our own conclusions, not get our coverage of the issue solely based on some vague percentage of support in the polls. What a tremendous failure of the media!"

Levi's right. There's a symbiotic relationship between elected officials, public opinion, and media coverage of issues. The rise of a plethora of cable news sources, Internet news sources and more has resulted in news (and opinion) that is short on facts. In fact, it seems increasingly obvious that opinion makes the news as much as news does.

Levi has commented to me before that he thought a certain stance I had on an issue was indicative of "Glenn Beck thinking." I took that to mean he was inferring that I didn't really have a substantive opinion of my own on the issue, that I was just repeating what I had heard from talk radio.

Talk radio does get a bad rap for that -- that listeners are nothing more than lemmings or foot soliders lined up for marching orders.

I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh a lot. That was before I got hooked on Glenn Beck. Looking back, I think Rush is more of, dare I say, a shill for the Republican Party, than I was willing to admit. He's been very vocal about not liking John McCain this year and that would represent some independence from the party, but I think he's still quite beholden.

But Rush Limbaugh isn't the "blowhard" a lot of people like to make him out to be. If a caller phones into Rush's program and whines about this or that and says something like "Rush, I know we live in a democracy, but this is insane!" Mr. Limbaugh will stop everything and take five, ten minutes, however long it takes, to help this caller (and all the people listening) understand that we do not live in a democracy, we don't want to live in a democracy, and here's why: bam, bam, bam. He'll lay it all out and I have to respect the guy for using his forum to actually educate his listeners and not just indoctrinate them.

Anyone who has listened to (or watched) Glenn Beck for any significant length of time knows he's got a pretty cool team of researchers working for him on both his radio program and his TV show. They fact-check just about everything before it goes on the air. In addition, Glenn seems very sensitive about the typical talk-radio rumors that always go around. For example, lately it's that Barack Obama won't pledge allegiance to the flag, that he's not a Christian, etc. In fact, this last week, a guy called into Glenn's radio program to point out Obama's hypocricy in saying he was embarrassed that Americans don't know many foreign languages but that he delivered all his Europe speeches in English. Then, the caller thought it would be funny to add a little something. Read below and observe as Glenn deals with it.

CALLER: Well, you know, I'm not really sure about when he went to, oh, the Muslim countries. But I have a feeling he speaks their language, though.

GLENN: See, now wait a minute. I don't even know what that means. Why would you even go there?

CALLER: Well, because I'm just the evil conservative.

GLENN: Well, you know what? You know what? You give conservatives a bad name when you -- no, listen to me, Cliff.

CALLER: Okay.

GLENN: When you insinuate that Obama is a Muslim and he's not a Muslim, you give conservatives a bad name. You give people a bad name because that is the kind of argument where you lose immediately. You say something like that and nobody worth their salt listens to you anymore about what you have to say about Barack Obama. Don't say those things. There's no reason to say those things. You know what? You say something like that and then I stop looking to see if Obama ever, the elitist, ever did say, "You know what, you go over to other countries, I'm sick of these Americans" because I no longer believe you. I don't think you have any credibility at all.

--28 July 2008

To kind of get back on topic here, I admit a chunk of my opinion is shaped by what Glenn Beck says, but I'm willing to go with it because I know he (and his people) have done their work. Plus, Glenn encourages his listeners to learn for themselves and often gives them the sources where they can find the facts  themselves.

Facts to back me up

So, I went out looking for articles written by "experts" in energy policy and found a lot of what I was looking for at The Heritage Foundation.

• Supply, demand and gasoline prices by David Kreutzer, Ph.D.
• Oil speculators help consumers at the gas pump by David Kreutzer, Ph.D.
• Oil: Open up federal lands by Ben Lieberman
• No drilling? No excuses by Ben Lieberman
• More Energy Supplies, Not More Taxes and Regulations, Are What We Need by Ben Lieberman
• Lifting the Offshore Drilling Ban: A Positive Step in the Fight against High Energy Prices by Ben Lieberman

And here are a couple other articles I found.

• Death of Reason, Again? - Article on windfall profits by Bruce Bartlett
• Oil Company Profits and Tax Collections: Does the U.S. Need a New Windfall Profits Tax? by Jonathan Williams and Scott A. Hodge of The Tax Foundation

Whew. I'm tired.

Okay, it's time for a little political talk. Today, our friend and savior, Barack Obama was campaigning in Florida and revealed that he has flipped, justifiably so, on the issue of increasing domestic oil drilling.

I applaud the Obama campaign for starting to "get it" on the issue of energy. Most Americans, even those on the right, support the development of new alternative, forms of energy. But, in the meantime, there's a lot we can do to keep the price of petroleum-based fuel from continuing to climb.

Next, Obama delivered a precious disclaimer he's used before:

"It's also important to recognize if you start drilling now you won't see a drop of oil for ten years, which means its not going to have a significant impact on short-term prices. Every expert agrees on that."

(This quote from an article at http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/state/epaper/2008/08/01/0801obama1.html.)

This is fear mongering, plain and simple and it's a classic maneuver straight out of Al Gore's playbook. "All the experts agree!" Yeah, right. Show them to me!

If we do no drilling and merely "hope for change" via Obama's promise of new technology delivering us out of our energy slump, it will be at least ten years before things start to improve.

And that's not all. This ten-year delay makes no sense. Obama's claim may be based on the time it would take for America to increase refining capability. It's true that it takes 4-10 years (depending on how much red tape the local and federal government throw up in their path) for an oil company to build and begin operating a new oil refinery. But, for drilling and then pumping crude oil out of the ground, we're talking about a matter of weeks or months before product is available on the market, not years.

If domestic supplies are harnessed, we can lower our oil imports and supplant it with domestic oil supplies. It's a no-brainer that oil prices in the U.S. will fall or at least become less tied to the world market price levels.

Crude oil futures dropped about $20 right after President Bush lifted the presidential ban on offshore oil drilling. Oil production didn't change! The market just responded to the possibility of increased domestic production. The market will respond even moreas soon as roadblocks to increased domestic supply are removed.

We may never see $1.50/gallon gasoline for a long, long time, but we could see $3.00 or $2.50/gallon gasoline despite increased demand from India and China.

Last night, a close, personal friend sent me e-mail asking me for a "script fu" favor. It would seem that my close, personal friend had somehow acquired a collection of audio files and these files were in a format that his personal media player device would not play. The audio files were encoded in the MPEG-4 Audio (M4A) format and my close, personal friend's personal media player device supports a wide range of formats including FLAC, WAV, Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and perhaps some others I can't remember at the moment. My friend (who is my close, personal friend) asked me if I could "whip something up" that could convert all his files to MP3 format.

What a nice challenge!

For a few moments, I considered tackling this problem with a shell script using time-tested command line utilities like find, sed, and grep, but ultimately, I decided to engage this challenge using Perl.

I chose Perl over shell scripting mostly because the directory tree that needed to be traversed to access all the files had file and directory entries that contained an arbitrary number of whitespace characters and other not-so-friendly-to-shell characters. While I'm sure this could have been accomodated, it didn't seem like fun and I got excited thinking about how this could be handled with Perl.

It's a fun exercise to write Perl scripts that use opendir, readdir, and other standard Perl functions to interact with the host filesystem, but I knew there were some valuable CPAN modules, maybe even some "indistinguishable from magic" modules maintained by Damian Conway, I could use.

The first module I decided to use was File::Find::Rule which provides an alternative interface to File::Find.

use File::Find::Rule;

...

my @files = File::Find::Rule->file()
                            ->name('*.m4a')
                            ->in( '/path/to/root/of/files' );

File::Find is somewhat of a relic in terms of how it operates. It doesn't provide any kind of object oriented interface for using it and requires the user to pass subroutine references which isn't very pretty. File::Find::Rule, on the other hand, works relatively nicely.

To convert the files, once we had them in a list, I figured we'd use the veritable bastion of audio versatility that is mplayer and use its built-in ability to construct standalone WAV files from media files. To do this at the command line, use the pcm audio output option and specify a filename:

mplayer -ao pcm:file=myfile.wav someotherfile.m4a

There are a couple quadrillion other options and parameters you could also add, but this is the general gist of it.

After each MPEG-4 audio fi