Off-Hook

Les Paul

Les Paul was an inventor and innovator.  He made one of the first solid-body electric guitars ever at home in the mid 1930’s.  He’s also responsible for such recording innovations as overdubbing and multitrack recording.  That first guitar, known as “the log,” was made of a literal log and the pieces of an Epiphone guitar for looks.  His work with Gibson made the company an icon in modern music.  His name is on the guitars of some of the greatest musicians who have ever lived.  His legacy will last many generations beyond ours and his impact is felt worldwide.  Les Paul, in the years following his association with Gibson, changed what we all think of as music forever.

What kind of world do we live in where moments after Michael Jackson dies, you simply can’t get away from him in the media.  For over a month, he’s been in the news, the tabloids, on the radio.  You’d think he defined a generation or something, when in fact, the “king of pop” will go down in history as having introduced a new weirdness to celebrity, new lows in publicity stunts, provacative gestures in front of millions in public arenas, and strong suspicion of having a penchant for young boys.  Still, he produced music that had mass appeal and influenced many after him.  How many of you knew Les Paul died yesterday?

My first and only electric guitar, which I never learned to play very well, was an Epiphone Les Paul Special II.  It was a simple, yet beautiful black electric guitar, and it “just felt right” to everyone who put hands on it.  If I ever get another electric guitar, it will be a Les Paul.

Les Paul had a direct and permanent impact on the music we all listen to today.  His name is synonymous with the electric guitar and rock ‘n roll.  His innovations are heard in almost everything you hear on your radio.  He influenced musicians from B.B. King to Smashing Pumpkins and everyone in between.  Even though Fender and Rickenbacker each came up with independent versions of his invention, Paul is widely regarded as the inventor of what we know as the electric guitar.  He died yesterday as he lived–  in front of the music.

Rock on, Les!

6/9/15 – 8/13/09

If you’ve installed or updated to the latest version of Ubuntu, “Jaunty Jackelope,” and you own an ATI graphics card, you’ve probably had a fairly frustrating experience so far.

Apparently, development on ATI graphics support has been minimal at best on the latest releases of Ubuntu, but fear not–  There is an EXCELLENT ATI driver installation guide out there.

However, I had errors after installing the latest ATI driver files–  And not because I didn’t have a new enough card.  I did check compatibility at ATI’s own support site first.

It seems there is a step missing from the process on the guide.  That’s why I’ve just published this little post.  If you are getting error messages after installing the latest driver, you could have overlooked the same thing I did.

I should have known that when I upgraded to the latest kernel, that the ATI driver I had installed would no longer work because it was compiled specifically for the kernel I was using when I made the install files.  Now one might think that the kernel source files that are required for compiling new install files would be upgraded along with the kernel, but this is not the case.  You must upgrade these source files to match your current kernel before running ATI’s script to build the install files.

In my case, this one simple install solved all my problems:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.28-14-generic

Afterwards, I simply followed the installation guide’s step-by-step process and I was back in gnome in no time.  I can verify it works for KDE, too, as this process has nothing to do with which gui you use.

It took me quite some time to figure out what I had overlooked.  If you’ve had this experience as well, I hope this saves you some time.

Geaux Tigers!

2009 National Champion Tigers

If you’re a first-time homebuyer, or it’s been 3 years since you’ve “owned” a home, you don’t wanna miss out on this!

First-time homebuyers may be able to take advantage of a tax credit for homes purchased in 2008 or 2009. The credit:

• Applies to purchases that close after April 8, 2008, and before Dec. 1, 2009.

• Applies only to homes used as a taxpayer’s principal residence.

• Reduces a taxpayer’s tax bill or increases his or her refund, dollar for dollar.

• Is fully refundable, meaning the credit will be paid out to eligible taxpayers, even if they owe no tax or the credit is more than the tax owed.

The credit is claimed using Form 5405.

For 2008 Home Purchases:

The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 established a tax credit for first-time homebuyers that can be worth up to $7,500. For homes purchased in 2008, the credit is similar to a no-interest loan and must be repaid in 15 equal, annual installments beginning with the 2010 income tax year.

For 2009 Home Purchases:

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 expanded the first-time homebuyer credit by increasing the credit amount to $8,000 for purchases made in 2009 before Dec. 1.

For homes purchased in 2009, the credit does not have to be paid back unless the home ceases to be the taxpayer’s main residence within a three-year period following the purchase.

First-time homebuyers who purchase a home in 2009 can claim the credit on either a 2008 tax return, due April 15, 2009, or a 2009 tax return, due April 15, 2010. The credit may not be claimed before the closing date. But, if the closing occurs after April 15, 2009, a taxpayer can still claim it on a 2008 tax return by requesting an extension of time to file or by filing an amended return.

More information is available in the Q&A section at the IRS website.

I saw this a couple years ago and remembered it today for whatever reason.  One of the best shorts I’ve ever seen.  I hope you enjoy it, too.

Just in case anyone was wondering, if you’re wanting to compile an application for install on debian or ubuntu, you don’t have to install all the compilers seperately according to some list of required packages make spits out the first time you try to compile.

You can simply install build-essential, which includes all the latest versions of the compilers necessary to build almost anything you can find. The line command is easy:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

Now, if you just can’t find it in a repository somewhere, you have the tools necessary to make the install yourself.

Another handy tool is alien.  This one allows you to install .rpm (redhat packages) on debian or ubuntu.

sudo apt-get install alien

I’m in the process of rebuilding my blog on a new host, so please be patient with me.  Things should look normal again shortly (I hope).

In case you’re wondering, I’ve been spending some time lately on the social network for my community in Benton, AR. If you’re interested, it’s MySaline.com. We discuss local issues, like how to influence local government regarding whether or not to remain a “dry” county and meeting candidates for local government positions. We also discuss community gatherings, carpooling, new restaurants and businesses. The site has helped bring me up to speed with what’s going on at my new home like nothing I’ve ever encountered before.

I highly recommend seeking out local community networks online– I’ve learned a bunch already and am looking forward to becoming more involved in my community!

Sorry for the long absence… In my time away I’ve moved to another state to work for a new employer and my blog’s host server has been updated with a new OS and new version of wordpress.

I’m ashamed to admit it has taken me over a month to figure out the problem (first, there was this bogus error message about cookies at login, then it appeared I could login, but to only a blank page). Turns out, there were blank lines in my config file. I simply deleted the blank lines (they were at the end of the file, so if you’re having the same problem, find your config file, go all the way to the end and backspace delete to the last actual character and save) and I’m back in business.

Isn’t it always hard to find but easy to fix? Go figure…

Anyway, I hope to be posting lots of new and interesting articles again soon.

Not so long ago, I posted a fix for the kdm splash screen of the Feisty Fawn release of Kubuntu. Every time there was a kernel update, it would update my grub menu and I had to go back into /boot/grub/menu.lst and update the line for the first kubuntu boot option with a vga setting (vga=792).

Please see this post for details.

This works in Gutsy, too, but for my setup (I have an agp ATI X700 graphics card connected via DVI to a 19″ Acer LCD), I had to update some more files first. I was lost until I happened upon this post in the ubuntu forums regarding framebuffer errors (thanks El Chupacabras).

Basically, I have to force the kernel to recognize my card and driver.

First, I had to edit the framebuffer blacklist for the kernel. This file is found at /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer and can be opened with any text editor. I like nano and vim.

$ sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer

The file will look something like this:

# Framebuffer drivers are generally buggy and poorly-supported, and cause
# suspend failures, kernel panics and general mayhem. For this reason we
# never load them automatically.
blacklist aty128fb
blacklist atyfb
blacklist radeonfb
blacklist cirrusfb
blacklist cyber2000fb
blacklist cyblafb
blacklist gx1fb
blacklist hgafb
blacklist i810fb…

Locate the brand that most closely resembles the name of your graphics card, and comment it out by putting a # in front of it. In my case, I inserted # in front of “blacklist radeonfb” and “blacklist vesafb” (never hurts to allow vesafb). Once completed, remember to “save” it and close your editor.

That done, I next updated startup modules with the same framebuffers. That, too, is a file update. The file is located at /etc/initramfs-tools/modules:

$ sudo nano /etc/initramfs-tools/modules

The file will look something like this:

# List of modules that you want to include in your initramfs.
#
# Syntax: module_name [args ...]
#
# You must run update-initramfs(8) to effect this change.
#
# Examples:
#
# raid1
# sd_mod

Go to the end of the file and add your framebuffers and the controller. I added to the end of the file:

fbcon
radeonfb
vesafb

Now just update the init scripts with one simple line:

$ sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

After that, I simply updated the kernel boot line in /boot/grub/menu.lst as I did before, even using the same vga (vga=792). It has worked ever since.

As the kernel has been updated, all I’ve had to update is the kernel line just as before with Feisty.

Again, thanks to El Chupacabras of ubuntuforums for finding this solution!

I hope this works for some of you as well as it worked for me!