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Hello Reader.
I don’t know why I have waited so long to post this… Tsk-Tsk.
In any case, this blog now lives (has for quite some time now actually) at http://mattezell.info
Please feel free to come on over there to participate in discussion or to catch up on the posts.
-Matt
After much scouring, I came across this gem hosted on Google Code – http://code.google.com/p/xdroidx/downloads/detail?name=DroidXBootstrap.apk
The pre-compiled Droid X Bootstrapper from Koush.
Just thought I would leave this here for you guys…
Apparently, the URL Shortener service is currently only available as a addon/plugin/extension for Google products. Fortunately, one such product is Chromium – for which there is a handy-dandy plugin that allows you to generate shortened goo.gl URLs for any page that you visit!
What makes this plug in even cooler (something else I just learned – literally at the same time as learning of goo.gl) is that this URL Shortener also generates a QR Bar Code (the bar code pictured to the left, if scanned with a QR capable device, will take you to THIS POST!)!!! To generate the bar code, all that is needed to be done is append ‘.qr’ to the goo.gl generated URL and “BAM!” MAGIC! You have a custom QR generated for whatever URL you are browsing! Example: “http://goo.gl/9yi5” will take you to this post and “http://goo.gl/9yi5.qr” is the bar code to the left!
Neat, huh?!
Just as was the case with with other dozen or so people in the world who use the OtherOS functionality of the PS3, I was very disappointed to learn 2 weeks back that Sony would be removing OtherOS functionality by means of a System Update (assumed to be related to fears stemming from GeoHot’s Exploit Release for the PS3 HyperVisor).
Sure enough, After declining the mandatory update, I found myself unable to log into PSN (post-April 1st, 2010). Fortunately, after some extensive Googling, I ran across this gem [Warning: Sketchy pop-ups and redirects – be safe]- how to setup your own DNS and Webserver for allowing the PS3 to “check for updates”! Thanks, DaGraver!
As I roll into day 2 of f’Unemployment, my inbox is quickly filling with auto-response emails thanking me for my application. As I am sure will occur in the coming weeks with increasing frequency, I find myself asking “how did I get here?”
I mean, sure, I remember going to school. I remember making the drive up in hopes of finding work in the big city. I remember starting and ending my most recent 2 positions. But how did I get here? How did I get to be an educated, unemployed 29 year old unsure of what I wanted to be when I grow up?
‘Go to a good school and get a good job’ is what they said. What defines a good school and a good job escapes me still today – to be honest, I think this is becoming an increasingly hard thing to define as college has become the equivalent of high school and traditional ‘careers’ become merely jobs.
As I wrestle with finding work and weigh this against incurring additional student loans in pursuit of my Masters, I have to ask – “Is there a better way?” Is there some as-of-yet unknown way that I can market my particular skills and find a rewarding career in the field that I love?
Ok. Enough fruitless life musings – time to try and find some real (paying) work… A career? I don’t know if those exist anymore…
I am genuinely and generally perplexed.
My family and my friends are the things of which I feel most certain. The other facets of my life, less so.
Of one other things which I feel is most definitely certain: this is not how I dreamt it.
Am I sad? Sometimes.
Am I depressed? Not chronically.
Am I ready for something different?
Most certainly.
Setting up Google Go in Ubuntu 9.10
Google Go
Go is Google’s newest offering to the development community. According to the project’s page, Go is an expressive, concurrent, garbage collected programming language that is simple, fast, safe, concurrent, fun and (best of all) open source. Touted as a cross between C/C++ and Python, Go seems to be generating a lot of buzz and hoards of seemingly early adopters despite having surfaced only earlier today (11.10.2009) . Of course this is somewhat expected – what has Google ever released that didn’t generate it’s share of hype/buzz/excitement associated with it?
I bit. I am guessing since you are reading this, you did too.
Getting Ready to Go
EDIT: For more updated discussion on this, please head to my thread on Ubuntu Forums – http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1322518
The following instructions detail the steps that I used to setup Go on my x64 Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) box.
Standard disclaimer: Your mileage may vary. For me everything was pretty much straight forward when following the maintainer’s provided setup instructions (http://golang.org/doc/install.html). The only hiccup I encountered during setup was an error with a test during make – Error 2 in [net.test]. A quick bounce over to #go-nuts resolved that – friendly go-nut knowledge base, iant, advised me that there was an issue with this test on some machines in the release version and that I should pull an update. Update pulled, problem fixed.
For simplicity sake, I am working from the gnome-terminal. Access bash as you see fit. When you see ‘$’, it denotes a command to enter in the CLI (Command Line Interface). When you see ‘>’, it denotes and output line.
FYI – My Machine Info:
$uname -a
>2.6.31-14-generic #48-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 16 14:05:01 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Installing Required Tools
Install Python Setup Tools if not installed – Makes installing Mercurial in Ubuntu easy.
$sudo apt-get install python-setuptools
Install Mercurial (using your newly installed Python Setup Tools):
$sudo easy_install mercurial
Install GCC (to build Go):
$sudo apt-get install bison gcc libc6-dev
Setting Up Your Environment
1) Make ‘bin’ directory for go – You may have one – this will create it for you if you don’t:
$mkdir ~/bin
2) Setting up environmental variables:
Edit your Bash environment variables to include the Go required variables as well as making sure your bin folder is in the $PATH
$cp ~/.bashrc ~/.bashrc.bu
$gedit ~/.bashrc
Add following to your .bashrc:
#Google Go Vars
export GOROOT=~/go
export GOOS=linux
export GOARCH=amd64
PATH=${PATH}:$HOME/bin
Reload .bashrc
$source .bashrc
Note: You can close your terminal session and restart terminal instead. Up to you.
Check out Go ( to your Go root using Mercurial)
$hg clone -r release https://go.googlecode.com/hg/ $GOROOT
Note: I had to pull an update due to errors during make (details below with build instructions):
$cd $GOROOT
$hg pull -u
Build Go
$cd $GOROOT/src
$./all.bash
If successful, results should be:
>— cd ../test
>0 known bugs; 0 unexpected bugs
Note on make errors: Before pulling an update on the repository, make resulted in:
>make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/eznet/go/src/pkg/net’
>make: *** [net.test] Error 2
Updating via the ‘hg pull -u’ command above resolved this issue and allowed make to complete as desired.
GO play with Go
It all works – out of the box! You name it – Webcam, Wifi, Audio… It all works – at blazing speeds, no less! Comiz – no sweat, works great on this chipset… HD Video, no problemo… Good times, good times…
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