Dean Sas's Weblog » p.u.c & p.u-uk.org http://www.deansas.org/blog Tappity tap tap Sat, 24 Apr 2010 11:21:35 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 As everyone else is doing it.. http://www.deansas.org/blog/2008/04/15/as-everyone-else-is-doing-it/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2008/04/15/as-everyone-else-is-doing-it/#comments Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:47:45 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/2008/04/15/as-everyone-else-is-doing-it/ dean@tir:~$ history | awk '{a[$2]++}END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}' | sort -rn | head 89 vi 58 cd 55 ls 46 gnome-do 43 gmcs 43 cp 34 bzr 32 ./foo.exe 20 mono 14 sudo

I’ve been trying to fix a bug in gnome-do plugins recently

Update: bah, I forgot that drivel isn’t an html editor.

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2008/04/15/as-everyone-else-is-doing-it/feed/ 3 Jobs http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/04/25/jobs/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/04/25/jobs/#comments Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:55:07 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/04/25/jobs/ As I’m soon to graduate and enter the jobs market I have read quite a few job adverts recently. This vacancy for a Linux sysadmin at Last FM really caught my eye, not only are they using Debian and Ubuntu but the job specification includes, “A preference for vi over emacs”.

I’m not quite sure why it matters what editor people use but it makes the advert memorable and means it’s likely to be talked about, ‘viral recruitment’ perhaps. I guess this post means that it worked.

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/04/25/jobs/feed/ 1 Feisty Feature of the Day http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/04/12/feisty-feature-of-the-day/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/04/12/feisty-feature-of-the-day/#comments Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:49:18 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/04/12/feisty-feature-of-the-day/ Phil Bull has summed up his list of Feisty features blogged to date, he’s trying to write about a new Feisty feature every day from the beginning of March until release (one week to go!). It’s well worth a read, I’ve been running Feisty since November and there were a couple of things I found out about still.

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/04/12/feisty-feature-of-the-day/feed/ 0 Ubuntu Membership http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/01/16/ubuntu-membership/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/01/16/ubuntu-membership/#comments Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:47:47 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/01/16/ubuntu-membership/ Last Tuesday I was present at the Ubuntu Community Council meeting where my application for Ubuntu membership was under consideration. Thankfully I was near the front of a rather large queue of applicants, so I did not have to wait too long to be considered.

I nominated myself for membership on the basis of my contributions with the bugsquad and my involvement with the Ubuntu-UK team. I had a merry band of supporters from the Ubuntu-UK team pre-volunteer to support my application and rather surprisingly support from a few other people I didn’t really know on the basis of my bug and documentation efforts.

After a few moments of consideration I received three “+1s” from the Council and became a full fledged Ubuntu member. Wohoo! Thanks to all that supported my application :)

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/01/16/ubuntu-membership/feed/ 4 2006 Reviewed http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/01/05/2006-reviewed/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/01/05/2006-reviewed/#comments Fri, 05 Jan 2007 00:21:16 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/01/05/2006-reviewed/ Here’s a quick summary of what has happened to me during 2006. It seems as time passes I blog less and less, the adage of ‘the more interesting your life gets, the less time you have to blog about it’ probably proving true. It means it’s hard to remember things you’ve done too.

January
February
March
  • I don’t really remember anything happening in March.
April
May
  • Joined Britannias “Middleware” team
  • Started a weekly blog series of any pages I’ve bookmarked , that quickly fizzled out though.
June
July
  • Sara and I hit our two year anniversary.
  • Spent time playing around with Ruby on Rails
August
  • I turned 21 and stopped my twice weekly swimming due to all of the kids in the pool.
September
October
November
  • Uni work taking up all of my time again, Sara came to live the student lifestyle for a weekend too.
December
  • Finally got an iPod after uhming and ahming for a few years. Thanks Sara!
  • Spent New Years Eve at Saras aunties with her family and called around to my cousins.

I also managed to keep last years new years resolutions somewhat. I’ve lost weight and have done more exercise than in the past, until going back to uni I was also getting a full 7 hours sleep each night. I’ve also increased my open source participation, I’m involved in both the Ubuntu Bugsquad and the Ubuntu UK “street team”. Hopefully next week I’ll be a Ubuntu member too.

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2007/01/05/2006-reviewed/feed/ 0 Getting Things Done http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/11/19/getting-things-done/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/11/19/getting-things-done/#comments Sun, 19 Nov 2006 06:02:24 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/11/19/getting-things-done/ As no-one no doubt remembers a while ago I tried to organise myself better using David Allens Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology. I was partially successful, I’ve always wrote to-do lists, though not to the extent Allen recommends, I also try to stick by the two minute: “when a new item comes up, if it can be done in two minutes do it now, if not delegate it if suitable, else defer it until later”.

Anyway, I’m writing about this now, as my uni workload is quite daunting and Nik Butler reminded me about GTD. So this should be the perfect time to get into the methodology, it’ll let me break down my uni work into easily manageable chunks and I have someone to swap tips with.

Originally to implement GTD I tried using my PDA, which didn’t work for a few reasons – the to-do list functionality didn’t make GTD easy enough, the text entry was a pain and PC synchronisation was a pain to say the least. After that I tried using Tracks – a web based GTD tracker. That didn’t work out due to some bugs becoming too big an annoyance (I was running trunk to get the features I wanted) and to be honest, due to me losing interest.

This time I think I’m going to keep it simple, inspired by a comment on 43folders (a personal productivity site) I’m just going to keep a singular tab delimited file that goes something like “context description project” and for examle just grep for . I can keep the canonical copy on my server and for those rare times I’m away from a network connection, I can have a copy on my laptop, use a notepad to collect bits as I go and use notepads for contexts that are by definition away from a computer “@shopping” for example.

Lets see how long I can keep it up this time.

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/11/19/getting-things-done/feed/ 2 Please Drink Responsibly http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/11/12/please-drink-responsibly/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/11/12/please-drink-responsibly/#comments Sun, 12 Nov 2006 14:49:45 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/11/12/please-drink-responsibly/ The leaflet is for a club night called 'Smashed' at Staffs uni, the leaflet lists cheap drink prices and then goes on to remind people to drink responsibly

Their heart is obviously not really into that idea.

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/11/12/please-drink-responsibly/feed/ 2 Joining the bugsquad http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/09/14/joining-the-bugsquad/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/09/14/joining-the-bugsquad/#comments Thu, 14 Sep 2006 16:08:53 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/blog/archives/2006/09/14/joining-the-bugsquad I’ve been using (unstable) Ubuntu as my full-time operating system for the last 18 months and one of my new years resolutions was to try and help out with open source software a bit more. So I’ve been volunteering some time to help out with testing and bug triaging amongst other things.

Anyway Tuesday night sfflaw made me member of the Ubuntu quality assurance team. :) Thank you Simon. See the Bug Squad page to find out how you can help.

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/09/14/joining-the-bugsquad/feed/ 1 Belated New Years Resolutions http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/01/08/belated-new-years-resolutions/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/01/08/belated-new-years-resolutions/#comments Sun, 08 Jan 2006 16:42:40 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/archives/2006/01/08/belated-new-years-resolutions/ While I’m doing lists. This year I intend to:

  • be healthier – early starts at work and getting the car haven’t been the best things for me.
    • Go to bed at normal times
    • Do some excercise – I’ve already been Thai Boxing, once. It’s a start.
  • Get things done
    • Make a significant contribution to open source – probably Ubuntu, this year. No more procastrination.
    • Do more programming. – I want to get something done and usable.

Bets on me looking back on this in fifty one weeks time and saying “I haven’t done any of this” aren’t been took.

]]> http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/01/08/belated-new-years-resolutions/feed/ 5 2005 Reviewed http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/01/04/2005-reviewed/ http://www.deansas.org/blog/2006/01/04/2005-reviewed/#comments Wed, 04 Jan 2006 00:57:23 +0000 Dean http://www.deansas.org/archives/2006/01/04/2005-reviewed/ Here’s a quick run down of things that have happened in my world during 2005, it’s nice to look back and think.
To summarise: Passed my driving test, fell back in love with linux, finished uni for a year, moved back home, got a car, started my work placement, went on holiday, got a laptop.

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
  • Sara turned 18
  • Sara and I’s first anniversary
  • Switched teams at work to work as a Unix Sys admin.
August
  • Had my first week off of work, spent my time spending the pay packet I’d just got.
  • Became old.
September
  • Basically nothing, except not blogging much.
October
November
December

Now on with the next year.

Post idea stole from Andrew Pollock.

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