Anyway, when I logged into facebook to see about an event (that was only to be found on the privileged pages of facebook), I noticed the invites in my “inbox” and I couldn’t say no to them (“them” meaning my friends, well… and my wife). I now have like a dozen virtual friends.

*BREAKING NEWS*
I couldn’t even finish this post without my brother congratulating me for getting inline.
*BREAKING NEWS*

Anyway, I like people. But I’d rather spend an hour chatting with a friend in the flesh, over lunch, then reading about what random people ate for breakfast. You think I’m kidding? I read over my wife’s shoulder when she’s logged into facebook. I know how lame it gets.

The other thing is (and most people will not understand this), I don’t like my personal information being held and managed by an outside party. Those relationships are mine. Many of then were carefully nurtured over many years. Putting them in a closed repository is fundamental broken (don’t tell me about an API – still fundamental broken). Those relationships had personal value to me before someone figured out how to leverage them to get new user sign-ups and to sell advertising. That’s why most of the conversations I have will be, in person, using personal email addresses, on the phone, over IRC, over IM (jabber only) or posted on my blog. Like I said, most of you don’t see it the way I do. Oh well.

So, yeah, micro-rant over. I’ll be on facebook from time to time, but I’ll mostly focus on the great things I have going in person, like my wonderful wife and kids that I see too little of.

Wait a minute! Shouldn’t I be working and not wasting time on my blog? Maybe, but at least I don’t require you to create an account to read about it :)

I really am a good guy and I don’t mean to sound grumpy. So, pull my blog’s feed, drop me a line (gabe@gundy.org), or give me a call. Let’s get together and talk shop, attend a conference, go to lunch, do some fishing, build something cool or just chill. Failing that, go ahead and add me to you facebook account. At least we’ll be able to share answers from the “What kind of cat would you be?” quiz ;)

I’m off to work. Let me know when the “next BIG thing” comes. Wish me luck and we’ll see you around :)

I guess I’m giving Google Reader a try for now. I don’t know if it will last. After all, I am on the rebound.

If you have a better suggestion, I’d love to hear it.

960-16 SVG (for Inkscape)
960-12 SVG (for Inkscape)

Do with them as you will. Consider them public domain.

UPDATE: These templates are for Inkscape. You will not see anything in other SVG views (such as Firefox).

The 960 Grid System is an effort to streamline web development workflow by providing commonly used dimensions, based on a width of 960 pixels.

It’s basically a CSS framework that helps you get your main site layout down so you can focus on the other parts of its design.

I’ll be using it. It makes laying out sites wicked easy and has almost no learning curve.

It’s not for everyone (and not for every website), but it doesn’t claim to be. What it sets out to do, it does well.

Thanks goes to Nate for the great tool!

Oh yeah, I also have some Inkscape templates for designing sites that I’ve created. I’ll be posting them soon. SVG FTW!

Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace.
This is a bug, which Ubuntu is designed to fix

Microsoft has a majority market share | Non-free software is holding back innovation in the IT industry, restricting access to IT to a small part of the world’s population and limiting the ability of software developers to reach their full potential, globally. This bug is widely evident in the PC industry.

Steps to repeat:
1. Visit a local PC store.
What happens:
2. Observe that a majority of PC’s for sale have non-free software pre-installed
3. Observe very few PC’s with Ubuntu and free software pre-installed

What should happen:
1. A majority of the PC’s for sale should include only free software like Ubuntu
2. Ubuntu should be marketed in a way such that its amazing features and benefits would be apparent and known by all.
3. The system shall become more and more user friendly as time passes.

Good work Ubuntu! Now, get that bug closed; it’s a blocker!

Also, with voter turnout as low as it is, I figure there are about 60% of the people who have no business complaining about politics or government officials. More to the point… If you didn’t vote, then shut-up. I stopped caring about your opinion on our government just after you did.

Here are the relevant parts (IP addresses and mailbox number changed to protect the innocent) of my sip.conf:

[general]
port => 5060
bindaddr => aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd
disallow => all
allow => ulaw
allow => alaw
context => sip-users
canreinvite => no
nat => no

[gabe]
username => gabe
secret => ****
mailbox => 1337
callerid => Gabe Gunderson <1337>
type => friend
host => dynamic

To to avoid NAT issues (on my side, not the server side), this communication is going over an OpenVPN connection. Make sure your tunnel is up before you start Ekiga and go to the preferences page. Set “Listen On” to tun0 and not eth0 (which is the default). The settings don’t seem to “take” until you restart Ekiga.

I like to keep things simple in the codec department. The VSP we’re using offers only G.711 (U-LAW or PCMU and A-LAW or PCMA). We’re using U-LAW since it’s the standard here in the U.S. and it costs the CPU very little to go from U-LAW < => U-LAW. It’s a little fatter in the tubes, but that’s not a big deal on this particular install.

Here’s a typical Account. I’ve chosen to use names for sip users instead of numbers. It makes the configs a little easier to read and you can always map numbers to names in the dial-plan.

If you have problems, there are a few things you can do to help figure out what’s going on.
Try the following:

• Run Ekiga from the command line with the debug switch:
  ‘ekiga -d 2′
• Or get specific debugging from Asterisk, like so:
  server*CLI> sip debug peer gabe
  SIP Debugging Enabled for IP: aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd:5060

The deal is that you get a free 6 minute phone call, but you give up your privacy. The calls get published on the Internet for the world to hear. It’s better then tapping the pay phone at the state liquor store at 2:00 A.M. And so, we now get to sit and listen as people “air their dirty laundry” to the world for the price of a 25 cent phone call. Jerry Springer has nothing on these guys.

From the source blog:

He (James Bowman of for60secs.com) explained that they envision a few different kinds of user for the phone service, such as people who are very price-conscious or shameless self-promoters who view it like reality TV – you give up privacy in exchange for fame.

And now you will never have to wonder “So she is 100% alive?” Warning: many of the calls contain strong language.

How did this information cross my path? It’s powered by the very cool Open Source Asterisk PBX.

How come I can’t settle on a Jabber server? I’ve tried them all and none sticks out as my clear favorite. They all have things I love and hate about them. Oh well, I’ll pick one and get it running soon. I think I’m going to base my decision on which one has the best LDAP support.

Any ideas?

P.S. If you need me before I get my jabber server re-installed, I can be reached by email at the same address [gabe (a) gundy.org].