Chris weBlog

I’ve had the NC10 netbook now for about a month now. I’ll some up what I’ve done so far since my last post.

1. Installed Ubuntu using Wubi.
   I messed around a little with Ubuntu and Netbook Remix.  I was only a little impressed with UNR.  For whatever reason whenever I opened up a new application from the dashboard it would open, then be obscured by the dashboard.  I haven’t found a solution to this and it’s damn more annoying that the calibration issues with the trackpad.  I also started having issues with the Ubuntu wireless driver.  It worked for a while, then it just quit on me.
2. Unistalled Wubi, Used Unetbootin to install OpenSuse.
   At this point I thought to try out something new.  I’ve never use OpenSuse before.  I downloaded Unetbootin HERE and selected the 11.1 installation.  Everything install smoothly and I thought the OS was pretty usable.  My only gripe is the boot time and how it handled (or lack there of) hibernating.  I just could not get the thing to hibernate when I closed the lid and when I initiated it manually it took forever to do so.  On the upside I really do like the new KDE 4.1 series.  So much that I’ll upgrade my Mandriva desktop to it this weekend.
3. Over-wrote OpenSuse with Ubuntu.
   So I tired easily of OpenSuse and decided to go back to Ubuntu.  The boot and shutdown times were faster and there wasn’t as much bloat.  This sort of thing really does become important for a mobile, battery powered device.  I’m not going to use UNR though.  I’ll just stick with the standard desktop interface and customize it a little more.

I really do like the NC10 and Christine really gets a kick out of how responsive and handy it has become.  It takes up very little space and tucks away neatly out of site in our living room.

My goal now, as I mentioned above, is to customize the interface a little more.  I’ll setup the email client and browser.  I’ll configure a media player to connect to my content server and make sure I can play music and movies.

At some point I think I’ll write an application that will let me selectively sync my NC10 with the media server and it will allow me to have only the media I want on the NC10.  So if I want to watch Iron Man and Charlie Wilson’s War on my next trip, but I don’t want to watch Super Troopers again, it will remove the old movie and sync up with the newer ones.

I think I’ll also want to add a photomanager… maybe Picasa or something similar.  And my Sansa utilities… yeah, that all sounds about right.

UPDATE:
I discovered that having desktop effects enabled in Ubuntu was causing the focus issues in Netbook Remix.  After disabling this everything works great!

I recently picked up an NC10 Netbook.  It’s a sort of 30th B-day present to myself.  I’ve wanted a small laptop to tote around on trips or to a relative’s house to help them setup/debug their home networks.  I’d like to have the ease of taking the device to business meetings and pitches without having to worry about lugging around a big briefcase.  Simple is better.

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First off, I apologize to those who have tried to post comments. I did not realize I had broken my commenting section when I recently uploaded a threaded comment plugin. As far as I can tell, it is fixed.

I’ve received a few emails and requests for more information about linking Symfony to Joomla (Original Post). The questions were pretty varied, but mostly centered around gaining some additional clarity and securing my approach using symmetric encryption.

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I’ve been having this migraine of a headache lately. Its the result of trying to get a symfony-based web service that requires authentication to hook up with a Joomla web site. I’ve tried using COil’s suggestions, but it still didn’t quite work.

UPDATE 6/10/08:  I think I’ve nailed a solution down.

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Now that I’m back from Seattle, I’ve had some time to digest everything that I’ve learned.

I need to take more time to unit test. I half ass it right now and it hurts me so much more later in the development life cycle. What it comes down to is that I need a way to make my testing easier and I think I’ve learned a new way to do that.

XUnit
The XUnit framework provides a standardized way to test your code. Each unit test can then be combined into a test suite that can be run during each build cycle. Its own added value ensures that new code conforms to existing tests.

I’ll be looking into ways to utilize XUnit in my C development (CUTEST or CUnit) as well as my switch56 PHP development efforts. I will also be looking into such frameworks as FUnit and FlexUnit to assist in some of our switch56 Flex development.