Jason Copenhaver

I spend a lot of time on Linux and Windows and I enjoyed my first 20-20-20-Rule so much I wrote another one that works on windows. 

You can download the full installer here.  It is written in C# so if you don’t have .NET 2.0 installed the install will be a little longer.  There is also one glitch in the installer, sometimes when it goes to download the .NET framework it doesn’t work, just cancel the install and try again.  I’m not sure if the error is with NSIS or one of Microsoft’s mirrors.  I tried getting some of the NotifyIcon stuff working on Mono but NotifyIcon just plain didn’t work on my amd64, gnome 2.16, and mono 1.2.3.  I’ll have to give it another try after my next upgrades.  Enjoy.

I’ve read about the 20-20-20 rule at a number of websites now. For those that don’t know the 20-20-20 rule says that “Every 20 minutes you should look at something 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds”. This gives your eyes a chance to relax and if you actually get up to do this, blood flow might even return to your legs. I tend to spend too much time staring at my monitors so I thought I would implement something to help me practice the 20-20-20 rule.

I created the 20-20-20-Rule.py python script to display a small pop-up for 20 seconds every 20 minutes. If you click on the tray icon that is displays you have two options, “Quit”, obvious, and “Restart”, which is useful if you’ve been away from the computer for awhile and want to restart your 20 minutes.

You’ll need the notifiaction-daemon, libnotify, and notify-python packages for this script to work. All of those can be found at the Galago project page if your distribution doesn’t currently have them installed.

In preparation for Linux Haiku IV I’ve written a plugin for GEdit.  I don’t really use GEdit, but it has a very simple plugin system that made this possible.  In true open source spirit I cobbled together some syllable counting code from here and here, and then plowed head first into writing my first python code.  I’m happy with my first draft.  It still needs work in the actual syllable counting part but it is usable for the most part.  The two major TODO items for it would be.

1.   Add a configure option to use something like the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary before going to the guessing algorithm.
2.   Fine tune the guessing algorithm with a test bench built from the above mentioned dictionary.


Enjoy!

gedit-plugin-haiku-0.1.tgz

nada

I’m so glad Comcast had that informative network health page.

It’s bad enough that I’m constantly bombarded with advertisements over the radio, on TV, on the Internet, hell, even the occasional SMS message on my cell phone. Now someone has got the great idea to drive around in heavy traffic with signs. Ads2Go, which is now operating in Sarasota, likes to drive trucks “through the most heavily traveled corridors in multiple, predetermined zones. Awesome. They are going to drive trucks carrying nothing but signs around in heavily trafficked areas. This should do wonders for gas conservation and traffic congestion.

The main reason I installed drupal was because I wanted a place to keep a list of the books I’ve read.  I wanted to remember when I last read them and what I thought.  The bookreview module that I have installed now has served me pretty well but I always felt like I had to put too much information into to make it work.  After reading this review of Shelfari I thought I would try out some of the sites it mentions.  The first one I hit was LibraryThing.  It was a one step shot to sign up for an account and I had my first book put into it in seconds.  I quickly learned how to navigate the site and was generally impressed.  I really love the mass import feature of the site.  It allowed me to export 54 ISBNs from my current database and import them into my new account.  I then went to Shelfari, although the site looked better the layout of the UI didn’t seem as nice to me.  It felt cumbersome entering a review and didn’t have the import feature I wanted.  I also went over and checked out Listal.  I think this site would be worth trying if I cared about cataloging my movies and music also.  But I just don’t.  In the end I’ve decided to move my book reviewing to LibraryThing.  I’ll make a couple of changes on my site so I can still get the book reviews to show up here but I’m hoping LibraryThing makes the whole process easier.

My birthday was a little over a week ago.  The best gift that I got wasn’t one thing, but an experience.  I found out that my wife is a lot more talented than me in certain areas and I shouldn’t try to think while drunk.  (Which might bode ill for this blog as I’m on my second glass of scotch).  I had a little party at Shakespeare’s this year with a bunch of people showing up.  When it came time to open my wife’s gift I was happy to find a Tower’s of Hanoi set.  I’ve liked this puzzle ever since I first learned about it in college.  Along with the puzzle came a riddle!  I hadn’t had too much to drink at this point so I deciphered it pretty quickly and figured out that I would have to wait until I got home for the next piece of the puzzle.  Late that night when I finally got home, after a short run in with the police, don’t ride with friends that have suspended licenses, I tried to solve the next piece of the puzzle.  This is when I figured out I shouldn’t try to think to hard after drinking.  I got pretty frustrated with it and I think even hurt my wife’s feelings.  At that point I gave up and went to bed.  Luckily my wife forgave me and when I got home from the work the next day I made it through the rest of the riddles and found two more gifts.  I’ll end this post with the riddles that I had to figure out.


1.
We visit it frequently
Nearly every supper
Look to this holder
Of the quicker picker-upper

2.
From here it gets harder
You must travel East,
if only in thought, to
recall the spirit of the gift.
    – Queen of Afghanistan

3.
I’ve been to an Island Along A Great Rim
a paradise abundant, feasts at my whim;
a land of milk, a long of Bee Nectar,
I Fed Like A Babe, then sadly I left her.

4a.
They Stand among friends,
looking commonplace
They hardly ever move,
taking up our Shared Space,
How rude! they whisper,
All circled and grouped,
Like they’ve something to hide,
Inside their rigid loop.

4b.
They are messy as neighbors
but tolerate we must.
It’s illegal to harm them
or remove them from us!

4c.
Tall proud and naked,
they are a shameless bunch
Always dropping things
to the floor
with a crunch

5.
You are near
Where the
journey Ends
Go to the edge of the world
    – S.S.

6.
Where some people keep
small change,
and others keep
larger assets

7.
You may have noticed that I’m terrible
at rhyme, meter, iambic pentameter;
but I once became acquainted with
an oft-drunk literary genius who was
fabulous at it…

If you take a quick look at what I post here you’ll see that I do book reviews quite often. Now I’ve found a way to squeeze even more reading into my schedule. DailyLit is a great website that will email a section of a book whenever you want. The interface is very easy to use, pick a book, pick how often you want it sent (i.e., daily at 5pm, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, etc), and where to send it. They then email you a readable section of the book. It takes maybe 5 minutes to get through what they’ve sent. The email also contains nice links like “get the next section now”, “suspend”, or a more powerful “manage my subscriptions”. I don’t think they are trying to make money, as the only pseudo advertisement is a text link at the end of the email taking you to amazon in case you want to buy the book. Because you don’t pay anything for this service the book selection is of course limited to public domain works. So far I’m really enjoying it. It has let me start on a book that I had yet to find the time to buy and it doesn’t get in the way of my other reading. If you can spend a couple of minutes a day reading a blog then you shouldn’t have any trouble reading a book using this great service.

A master in Epidemiology that is. My wife defended her Master’s Thesis today and everything went well. She was unbelievably stressed this weekend and today before she actually presented, but she pulled it off just like I knew she would. To celebrate we had snacks and a couple of beers at Shakespeare’s and were even lucky enough to run into one of the former Surly Chicks of Sarasota. Elsie talked about Shakespeare’s in her blog so much that I had to go down and try the place a couple of months ago. I think I’ve been at least once a week since. To finish the evening off we watched the gift I got for my wife, The Little Mermaid on DVD, just released. This is by far my wife’s favorite Disney movie. Aren’t I the best?

This has been a really good month.  And next month is shaping up to be just as good.  I started out this month with a week long trip to Germany.   Part business part sight seeing.  That was a great time.  The really funny part of it is that when Cathy and I first got married we jokingly said that we would go to Octoberfest in Germany on our 5 year anniversary.  Well that anniversary is coming up next year and we hadn’t really made any plans.  Then I found out that my job is sending me there for a week! Just in time!  We didn’t hit the biggest Octoberfest in Munich but we went to the Volksfest in Stuttgart.  The beer tents were awesome.  It is quite a feat drinking beer a liter at a time.  Also this month I stopped at MacAllister’s in Lakewood Ranch for the Scotch Tasting.  That is a great way to bring attention to the restaurant. The Famous Grouse vendor was there with plenty of free samples.  I’m thinking I’ve actually found an affordable everyday Scotch.  I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not =).  Today was also a busy day, with a stop at Hunsader Farms for the Pumpkin festival, and finished the night off at the Sarasota Blues Fest.  But the fun doesn’t stop there!  I’m planning on being at the Sarasota Reading Festival , the Sarasota Medieval Fair , and the Suncoast Wine Festival.  Once all that is taken care of it will be the holiday season and I’ll be visiting family and friends.  This is going to be a busy end to the year.