Jason Sidabras

So I’ve been complaining about the mouse speed in Ubuntu and that the GUI doesn’t have enough controls to tweak it the way that I would want it. Joe sent me to a blog he did back in 2007 for tweaking the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to get the mouse working just right. Well, I’m sorry to say, but it’s not 2007 anymore.

The newest version of Ubuntu (8.10) has done away with configurations in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf for inputs and hardware. This is a move done directly at the freedesktop.org facilities to introduce the Hardware Abstraction Layer or HAL. HAL is a daemon which runs at startup and configures all of your hardware. It is configurable by the user with some “simple” XML tags in /etc/hal/fdi/policy/<filename>.

You can find all of your information by running:

So this is what I put in there:

Reading the Ubuntu documentation on HAL for input devices gives you the idea.

Editing your /etc/x11/xorg.conf file still works, just don’t be surprised when one day it doesn’t.

NOTE: For all you apple users who want to change your driver to “synaptics” DON’T you will completely botch your keyboard. Still looking for a way out of this… yes, USB keyboards don’t work either.

Single User mode for the win.. at yaboot:

So I’ve had a free subscription to Sirius radio ever since I bought my new Audi. It’s quite a nice service, no commercials and I get treated like an adult (i.e. swear words aren’t bleeped out). Some problems I have endured mainly come from the fact that I don’t hear commercials. For instance, I forgot sweetest day this year and I didn’t hear the advertisements for the Chili Cookoff this year.So now only tickets are available at the door.

One of the perks of Sirius is that they are constantly updating content… well it was a perk until this morning.

I’ve been dealing with the fact that the Punk channel has been AC/DC radio for over a month. I thought it was going to stop when the new album dropped… but it didn’t. Now that channel no longer exists and is replaced by some light “rock”. My favorite channel Boombox, is gone. No longer are there any stations that remix rock and pop songs. Only 2 dance stations, where there used to be 5.

There are more classic rock stations that I will have to check out over the next couple of weeks, but there are also more “single band stations”. One of which is Led Zepplin. So, that is awesome, but only Zep? At least it will be a constant source of good music.

They have also upped the number of Jazz stations from 2 to 5. And I found a station called “real jazz” which sounded good this morning.

Anyway, here is the new linup. It seems Zepplin station will be going away 01/01/09.

This is pretty annoying.

So I’ve created a little tradition that I’ve tried to upkeep. Starting from my 21st birthday I’ve found a song that will ultimately decide my fate for the upcoming year.

This year is no different. But instead of looking for a song that says 27 in it, I’ve decided to go a different route.

So after setting up a dish with ~180 degree water and letting my Japanese Maple seeds soak for two days I was ready to follow, and not follow, the directions in preparing my Maple tree for growing. I ran to my local Home Depot to pic up the supplies i needed: good small particle potting soil, drainage rocks and some kind of peat moss.

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How many times will it take for me to learn that once a RAID system is up and running, stop screwing with it.

Phew: everything works flawlessly again. Now… should i go back to installing mod_python?