Well, last night was an "interesting" night. I guess it's one way to put it.
http://lcn.canoe.ca/lcn/infos/faitsdivers/archives/2008/12/20081226-081125.html
I was with girlfriend, in her family. A fire started in the house immediately next to the one we were in -- a duplex. We evacuated.
Fortunately, everyone in our family got out, and it looks like the family in the other house got out safely too. However, it brought me to notice how nice it is to have friendly neighbors who are ready to give you a hand in those sad moments. A lot of neighbors kindly offered their help, invited us in to get warm. That was really the spirit of Christmas, helping out those in need and getting to know people you maybe see everyday, but probably only say hi to every once in a while.
For me, it wasn't too bad a night -- I mean we only moved to car to let the firefighters have some room to work, and then we had to wait about four hours for them to finish up, move the trucks and remove the safety perimeter before my girlfriend could get her boots from the house, and we could go home. However, I can imagine the distress of the occupants, who either lost everything, or came very close to.
Good news, my girlfriend's family's house had very minimal damage to the roof, and maybe to slight water issues because of the work that was done on the other side. Still, all the best for them. They've gone through a lot, and they have all our support.
Thing is, from now on I'm guessing we'll be carrying a few little supplies in the trunk of the car... A warm blanket comes to mind, and well as a first aid kit.
Friday, 26 December 2008
Monday, 22 December 2008
Why Ubuntu is important to me
Well, maybe I'm a little late with all of this, but I do invite you to read Jono Bacon's great post "The Ubuntu Ethos", as well as Daniel Holbach's take on the subject: "Why I believe in Ubuntu".
As for my part, I'll have to go with the same answers as them. It's just really stimulating to see all the work that we can put together when working as a community. Sure, there is room for improvement, sometimes things are a little ugly, but overall everybody does a great job. In Ubuntu-QC for example, there is a clear motivation to help out people, and that's nice to see. Just about everywhere else, I see the same drive to make a difference, to help out those who hope for something better (by showing them about our wonderful distro!) and to support those who are just having trouble with one or two little details on their system.
I also feel that drive, and it's great to see that people are recognizing it and are happy to see our interest in their software, in Ubuntu, and in free software in general.
And even more importantly, it's nice to have a nice community you can go have a beer with every once in a while, and talk about those weird computer things that interest us.
As David Thomas so nicely put it in his post on the subject, learning about Ubuntu has been the catalyst to doing more, or at least finding out where to start. I had been wanting to participate more in free software, and as I learned about Ubuntu I also learned how I could make a difference, and found a great opportunity to contribute where it matters, where you've got a friendly atmosphere to work in, and where what you can do to help is clear and goals are attainable.
As for my part, I'll have to go with the same answers as them. It's just really stimulating to see all the work that we can put together when working as a community. Sure, there is room for improvement, sometimes things are a little ugly, but overall everybody does a great job. In Ubuntu-QC for example, there is a clear motivation to help out people, and that's nice to see. Just about everywhere else, I see the same drive to make a difference, to help out those who hope for something better (by showing them about our wonderful distro!) and to support those who are just having trouble with one or two little details on their system.
I also feel that drive, and it's great to see that people are recognizing it and are happy to see our interest in their software, in Ubuntu, and in free software in general.
And even more importantly, it's nice to have a nice community you can go have a beer with every once in a while, and talk about those weird computer things that interest us.
As David Thomas so nicely put it in his post on the subject, learning about Ubuntu has been the catalyst to doing more, or at least finding out where to start. I had been wanting to participate more in free software, and as I learned about Ubuntu I also learned how I could make a difference, and found a great opportunity to contribute where it matters, where you've got a friendly atmosphere to work in, and where what you can do to help is clear and goals are attainable.
Wednesday, 10 December 2008
De vieilles nouvelles, mais quand même...
Bon, j'avoue, c'est pas du nouveau. J'ai juste pas entendu parler de ca auparavant, et je pense que c'est quand même un bon truc à savoir.
Ici, au Québec, le gouvernement accordait directement à Microsoft, sans appel d'offres, des contrats logiciels. Deux organismes/entreprises se sont réveillés, soit l'organisme FACIL et l'entreprise Savoir-Faire Linux, pour amener un cour le gouvernement sur ce point et les réveiller un peu.
http://facil.qc.ca/fr/media/20080827-facil-conteste-les-pratiques-gouvernementales
http://www.qctop.com/actualites/logiciel-libre-cour-gouv-qc.htm
Je n'irai pas dans les détails puisqu'ils sont lisibles dans les liens ci-haut, mais c'est un excellent point à apporter, d'autant plus que le gouvernement devrait encourager l'industrie informatique locale...
Sur un autre point tout aussi "vieux" comme nouvelles, il existe un pacte signée par les députés de différents partis sur le support du logiciel libre. D'un certain côté, c'est très bien que plusieurs députés l'aient déjà signée, mais c'est quand même triste de constater que la majorités sont soit du Parti Vert, soit de Québec Solidaire. Les autres devraient peut-être se réveiller un peu... Le lien est ici: http://facil.qc.ca/fr/PacteduLogicielLibre
Il y a également une pétition, accessible à tous, pour l'utilisation du logiciel libre par le gouvernement du Québec.
Ceci dit, visitez le site de la pétition, signez-là, et tentez d'en parler avec votre député et de l'amener à la signer, ainsi que le Pacte du Logiciel Libre!
Ici, au Québec, le gouvernement accordait directement à Microsoft, sans appel d'offres, des contrats logiciels. Deux organismes/entreprises se sont réveillés, soit l'organisme FACIL et l'entreprise Savoir-Faire Linux, pour amener un cour le gouvernement sur ce point et les réveiller un peu.
http://facil.qc.ca/fr/media/20080827-facil-conteste-les-pratiques-gouvernementales
http://www.qctop.com/actualites/logiciel-libre-cour-gouv-qc.htm
Je n'irai pas dans les détails puisqu'ils sont lisibles dans les liens ci-haut, mais c'est un excellent point à apporter, d'autant plus que le gouvernement devrait encourager l'industrie informatique locale...
Sur un autre point tout aussi "vieux" comme nouvelles, il existe un pacte signée par les députés de différents partis sur le support du logiciel libre. D'un certain côté, c'est très bien que plusieurs députés l'aient déjà signée, mais c'est quand même triste de constater que la majorités sont soit du Parti Vert, soit de Québec Solidaire. Les autres devraient peut-être se réveiller un peu... Le lien est ici: http://facil.qc.ca/fr/PacteduLogicielLibre
Il y a également une pétition, accessible à tous, pour l'utilisation du logiciel libre par le gouvernement du Québec.
Ceci dit, visitez le site de la pétition, signez-là, et tentez d'en parler avec votre député et de l'amener à la signer, ainsi que le Pacte du Logiciel Libre!
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
A coalition?
Politics here in Canada are just really fucked up -- sorry for the wording, I can't find any better way to explain it.
So what's gotten to people and wanting to just replace the government like that? What about those who are somewhat happy with the outcome? Yes, maybe they hoped for something else, better, but the votes have brought this result.
At the same time, the Conservatives are not the actual majority: Harper was named PM because his party had more elected MPs than the other parties, but on the whole, they are still fewer than the sum of the opposition MPs if you put them all together. As such, I am supporting the coalition idea because it stands as an effort to keep the MPs representing the majority in the position of power. It's not things to be taken lightly, certainly not something that should happen too often, but it currently seems like the right thing to do. Some of the horrible, horrible moral views of the Conservatives will be kept away, and if given a chance, maybe a coalition will be able to change things for the better -- and not only economically.
And no, I certainly don't prefer Dion to Harper. The mix of ideas and views is what I'm looking for, rather than a specific party or leader. All the parties have some good ideas... just like they all have some horribly flawed views too.
Oh and please, PLEASE! Stop this madness of elections almost every year. The X just gets harder to draw every time.
So what's gotten to people and wanting to just replace the government like that? What about those who are somewhat happy with the outcome? Yes, maybe they hoped for something else, better, but the votes have brought this result.
At the same time, the Conservatives are not the actual majority: Harper was named PM because his party had more elected MPs than the other parties, but on the whole, they are still fewer than the sum of the opposition MPs if you put them all together. As such, I am supporting the coalition idea because it stands as an effort to keep the MPs representing the majority in the position of power. It's not things to be taken lightly, certainly not something that should happen too often, but it currently seems like the right thing to do. Some of the horrible, horrible moral views of the Conservatives will be kept away, and if given a chance, maybe a coalition will be able to change things for the better -- and not only economically.
And no, I certainly don't prefer Dion to Harper. The mix of ideas and views is what I'm looking for, rather than a specific party or leader. All the parties have some good ideas... just like they all have some horribly flawed views too.
Oh and please, PLEASE! Stop this madness of elections almost every year. The X just gets harder to draw every time.
Thursday, 27 November 2008
The year is almost over...
I read Stephan Hermann's post today on his blog, that I saw on Planet Ubuntu. I think he pretty much hit the nail right on the head, especially with his quotes from Tom Limoncelli's excellent book: Time Management for System Administrators (ISBN-10: 0-596-00783-3 / ISBN-13: 978-0-596-00783-6)
I won't re-copy the excerpts he quoted, but it essentially stood for saying that system administrators, at least in the majority, are tinkerers, and have a hard time separating work from personal life -- everything seems to blur into one major problem-solving challenge, just endless puzzles from the point you wake up until when you go to sleep. In any case, it is the case for me. I'll just work my full day, solving different usual or just completely new problems, only to come back home to tackle on some open source project that fascinates me, or to play on my computer. I've even witnessed the same kind of thing happening when some friends come over with laptops, or when me and my SO just sit in bed with our netbooks, chatting or, in my case, working away at something that caught my attention on that day.
Anyway, I already started, last year, to pay more attention to time management, and having read the book, there's many tricks I still haven't applied to my life. It's great because each work independently, but I'm still going to give it more effort and integrate some of the really nifty little ideas to managing my time more effectively for the upcoming year.
As for giving out details on my other plans for 2009:
In company life, I've been at my current workplace for nearly 4 years now. I still very much enjoy everything I do, especially when I consider that not all places are necessarily as open, as stimulating and interesting to work in, and always full of totally new projects to tackle. It seems like here, things are ever-changing and there's always something new to learn. That's great: I love to learn. For the upcoming year, looks like there are still more new interesting projects to come, and I also have ideas of my own. I want to improve the network in a large scale, especially from the aspects of monitoring and administration tools.
In terms of my personal life, little has changed for a while now -- things are going on just fine, and it's especially great to have been able to re-unite with an old friend, and learn that he's a hardcore geek too ;)
In opensource, thanks to this "new" old friend, I'm planning on spending a lot of time on various little projects. One that should take a good amount of my time is to build a point-of-sales system for the KDE platform -- the details aren't set in stone yet, we're still looking at bringing in ideas, finding out what are the best tools for the job, etc.
I'm also still spending a good amount of time on NetworkManager, and I like to play around with Terminator too. Terminator was a fun little project to look into, and as I stated in a previous post, I was able to adapt a cool feature from a previous version in someone's Bazaar branch, bring it in my own, and make it work with Terminator's latest source (again from bazaar). That was a great new crutch for improving my understanding and skills in Python.
From reading Stephan's blog post, it seems I may need to look into Leonov as well. Looks like a very nice tool, also in Python, so I will definitely at least give it a test run. Maybe I can even find some cool ways to contribute to it too, even with my somewhat limited knowledge of Python.
Ah, and thanks to Fabian Rodriguez for creating a new team specifically for the Ubuntu Quebec Launchpad Answers contacts. It's true that we were getting a lot of messages from Launchpad Answers, and I'm guessing that not everyone wanted to have to deal with this. Anyway, I've already applied and I've been accepted to join that team, and I'll still do my best at answering any questions that come up. So if you're using Ubuntu, have questions about a feature, or how to do something (especially if you want to ask it in French!), drop by Launchpad and ask away! There's lots of very talented and understanding people ready to help you out.
I won't re-copy the excerpts he quoted, but it essentially stood for saying that system administrators, at least in the majority, are tinkerers, and have a hard time separating work from personal life -- everything seems to blur into one major problem-solving challenge, just endless puzzles from the point you wake up until when you go to sleep. In any case, it is the case for me. I'll just work my full day, solving different usual or just completely new problems, only to come back home to tackle on some open source project that fascinates me, or to play on my computer. I've even witnessed the same kind of thing happening when some friends come over with laptops, or when me and my SO just sit in bed with our netbooks, chatting or, in my case, working away at something that caught my attention on that day.
Anyway, I already started, last year, to pay more attention to time management, and having read the book, there's many tricks I still haven't applied to my life. It's great because each work independently, but I'm still going to give it more effort and integrate some of the really nifty little ideas to managing my time more effectively for the upcoming year.
As for giving out details on my other plans for 2009:
In company life, I've been at my current workplace for nearly 4 years now. I still very much enjoy everything I do, especially when I consider that not all places are necessarily as open, as stimulating and interesting to work in, and always full of totally new projects to tackle. It seems like here, things are ever-changing and there's always something new to learn. That's great: I love to learn. For the upcoming year, looks like there are still more new interesting projects to come, and I also have ideas of my own. I want to improve the network in a large scale, especially from the aspects of monitoring and administration tools.
In terms of my personal life, little has changed for a while now -- things are going on just fine, and it's especially great to have been able to re-unite with an old friend, and learn that he's a hardcore geek too ;)
In opensource, thanks to this "new" old friend, I'm planning on spending a lot of time on various little projects. One that should take a good amount of my time is to build a point-of-sales system for the KDE platform -- the details aren't set in stone yet, we're still looking at bringing in ideas, finding out what are the best tools for the job, etc.
I'm also still spending a good amount of time on NetworkManager, and I like to play around with Terminator too. Terminator was a fun little project to look into, and as I stated in a previous post, I was able to adapt a cool feature from a previous version in someone's Bazaar branch, bring it in my own, and make it work with Terminator's latest source (again from bazaar). That was a great new crutch for improving my understanding and skills in Python.
From reading Stephan's blog post, it seems I may need to look into Leonov as well. Looks like a very nice tool, also in Python, so I will definitely at least give it a test run. Maybe I can even find some cool ways to contribute to it too, even with my somewhat limited knowledge of Python.
Ah, and thanks to Fabian Rodriguez for creating a new team specifically for the Ubuntu Quebec Launchpad Answers contacts. It's true that we were getting a lot of messages from Launchpad Answers, and I'm guessing that not everyone wanted to have to deal with this. Anyway, I've already applied and I've been accepted to join that team, and I'll still do my best at answering any questions that come up. So if you're using Ubuntu, have questions about a feature, or how to do something (especially if you want to ask it in French!), drop by Launchpad and ask away! There's lots of very talented and understanding people ready to help you out.
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Un nouveau blog?
Intéressant. Le CTO de la compagnie où je travaille vient de lancer un nouveau blog. C'est pas mal, reste à voir si il y aura des mises à jour...
En tout cas, c'est certainement un pas dans la bonne direction, si on peut avoir davantage de détails sur les idées des hauts dirigeants de l'entreprise, sur leurs perspectives de la situation économique, et de ce qui se passe du côté de la direction générale que prend l'entreprise. Le blog n'est pas public, seulement accessible (du moins pour le moment), aux employés via un site Intranet. Ca m'a fait un peu penser aux weblogs, par exemple, de Mark Shuttleworth (CEO de Canonical) ou Jonathan Schwarz (CEO de Sun), qui ont aussi des weblogs, pour ne nommer que ceux que j'ai bel et bien lus.
Ce qui me surprendrais, mais me donnerais vraiment un boost de motivation par contre, ce serait de voir qu'on a un "militant" du logiciel libre parmis la direction, ou la haute direction... Ceci dit, je suis pratiquement certain que ce n'est pas le cas. :)
En tout cas, c'est certainement un pas dans la bonne direction, si on peut avoir davantage de détails sur les idées des hauts dirigeants de l'entreprise, sur leurs perspectives de la situation économique, et de ce qui se passe du côté de la direction générale que prend l'entreprise. Le blog n'est pas public, seulement accessible (du moins pour le moment), aux employés via un site Intranet. Ca m'a fait un peu penser aux weblogs, par exemple, de Mark Shuttleworth (CEO de Canonical) ou Jonathan Schwarz (CEO de Sun), qui ont aussi des weblogs, pour ne nommer que ceux que j'ai bel et bien lus.
Ce qui me surprendrais, mais me donnerais vraiment un boost de motivation par contre, ce serait de voir qu'on a un "militant" du logiciel libre parmis la direction, ou la haute direction... Ceci dit, je suis pratiquement certain que ce n'est pas le cas. :)
Friday, 14 November 2008
Status update
Not much to say here. I've been working for some time at the adaptation of a patch to Terminator (a GNOME terminal wrapper that supports panning), and quite a lot of time on NetworkManager's VPNC plugin still, which seems to still give me some issues. The goal is mostly to adapt the plugin to mimic some of the features of the OpenVPN plugin, where the auth dialog goes to read some GConf keys, but so far I seem to run into ugly SegFaults, or other errors, and I'm still kind of tracking them down, although I haven't spent too much time on that, since I've bought an Xbox. Fixing those should be done fairly soon, and there should be a nice update to network-manager-vpnc on my PPA (and some of the still-broken code is already on my Bazaar branch). As for Terminator, my bazaar branch already has the fix committed, and my PPA has it packaged:
terminator - 0.11-2ubuntu2~ppaintrepid1
Assassin's Creed and Crackdown do seem to steal quite a lot of time from me, but it's a fun way to finish a forced vacation from work ;)
terminator - 0.11-2ubuntu2~ppaintrepid1
Assassin's Creed and Crackdown do seem to steal quite a lot of time from me, but it's a fun way to finish a forced vacation from work ;)
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