earobinson

This summer I am lucky enough to be doing an internship with the Citizen Lab at the Unervisity of Toronto.

The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada focusing on advanced research and development at the intersection of digital media and world civic politics.

Source

The Citizen Lab has created such software as psiphon, and I have great respect for the work they do to keep the internet open. I was lucky enough to take a class with Professor Ronald J. Deibert and have Nart Villeneuve, who I will be reporting to during my internship, as my TA. Im really looking forward to it as this will give me a chance to work on software in a very diferent enviorment, and maybe even push some GPL code out into the wild. For more info about the Citizen Lab see the video below.

Edit: And as an extra bonus it seems I will get to code in python!

Tags: Citizen Lab, Internship, Munk Centre, School, Summer, Unervisity of Toronto, Work

<rant>Although I get to use Linux mostly for work and personally, there always comes a time when I need to use Windows. It could be that I need to write a program for Windows, or that I have a friend, or family member that needs windows for something. This is one of those times.

What frustrates me most is that I’m trying to install Windows on a laptop that came with Windows Media Centre. That laptop has a Windows Media Centre key but I don’t have the Dell disks that came with that laptop, and I know I can order them from Dell and at the end of the day I just might have to do that (and end up paying for it). But what annoys me most is that including the Windows key on the bottom of the laptop, that I’m trying to install windows on, I have three legit Windows XP keys but cant get an install working. I have an MSDNAA Windows XP key, as well as the Dell XP key from the bottom of my laptop and what annoys me is that I have three valid XP keys and I cant seem to install XP.

I have no media center disks, annoying and I really don’t want to used bittorrent to download them. I don’t feel like I should have to steal software that I own

The MSDNAA ISO and key came from two different people, eg its my key buy my buddy burned the ISO when he got a key, maybe that’s causing the problem I will burn my own copy and find out.

Obviously my laptop is OEM for XP pro and cant be installed on another computer even though I have never used it.

Guess this is just another reason I use Linux, I find this so annoying. Microsoft/Dell should really have a website that I can find out why the one key wont work as well as download ISOs. I know this is the way things are and that me wining about it is not going to change anything but I really just wish if I had a CD key I could download the ISO and use that key on any computer (only one of course). This just makes my windows experience more painful and makes me want to avoid Windows more.</rant>

Also my blog still seems to be broken I don’t want to update and spam the planet again by removing the fact that I think I fixed one of the issues.

Tags: Dell, Linux, Microsoft, My Experience, Rant, Why I use Linux, windows, Windows Media Center, Windows XP

I am a sucker for memes so In responce to this I give you:

1 firefox window
6 firefox tabs
0 emacs windows
0 emacs buffers
3 gnome-terminal windows
5 gnome-terminal tabs
1 text editor (geany)
9 geany tabs
1 IM window (pidgin)
6 pidgin tabs
1 music player (Banshee)

Tags: meme, poll

I have been blogging for quite some time. During that time I have used blogspot.com, wordpress.com and now my own wordpress install. The main thing that has made me move from platform to platform is gaining more and more control over my blogging experience. With that said as of late I have been having some really problematic wordpress bugs.

1. Wordpress republishes my rss feeds when I edit my posts
   I expected this was being caused by the Simple Feed Copyright plugin so I have disabled it. I had a reason for installing it but I would much rather be able to edit my posts and I’m not so sure how bother I am by other sites ripping my content (I would still rather they did not however). Despite my best googling efforts I have still not solved this problem. Any ideas? Update: Yup this seems to have solved it!
2. Wordpress is no longer emailing me when someone comments on my blog
   Google did get me more information on this problem. But I have still not been able to solve it. Whenever someone comments on my blog I would like to be notified by email. Any ideas?

About my Setup

• Hosting Plan: 1and1 home linux
• Wordpress Version: 2.5.1
• Plugins:
  • Enabled:
    • AdSense Manager 3.2.13
    • Akismet 2.1.4
    • Google Analyticator 2.12
    • Google XML Sitemaps 3.0.3.3
    • SyntaxHighlighter 1.1
    • TagMahal - Automatic tag suggester 1.0.3
    • WordPress.com Stats 1.2.1
    • wp-cache 2.1.2
  • Disabled:
    • Hello Dolly 1.5
    • Simple Feed Copyright 1.0
    • Theme Switcher Reloaded 1.0
• Theme: SpotLight-Fluid 1.2 By Sadish

If I left out anything let me know. Hope you guys can help me.

Tags: blogger, blogging, bug, call for help, plugins, rss, wordpress

I am a huge fan of the google docs, In fact I am pretty much a fan of all of googles services. I love having all my information with me wherever I go and I am willing to “sacrifice” my privacy in exchange for that service. Anything really important and I will keep it on my own server but I am yet to have anything that I really worry about. That said some people might not want to use google to host there expenses, I do.

The great thing about using google docs to host my expenses is that I can add an expense from anywhere using the google docs form feature In the example I provided (Fake Expenses), I use the forum feature to add expenses on the road as well as getting real time updates about the amount of money I spend per day, week, etc.

If you would like to use my expense tracker you can view it here (Be sure to check all the sheets (Form, Overview, Worker, and Totals)), or download it here. Then simply upload it to your google docs and set up a form. Also feel free to play around and add fake expenses to the doc.

How do you track your expenses?

Update 01: Click here to get your own copy of the doc in your google docs. Thanks JR.
Update 02: Any idea why when I edit my posts they are being republished?

Tags: Expense Tracker, google, google apps, google docs

I was reading reddit the other day and stumbled upon the fact that wikipedia has an API. Neat I thought, and having some free time since my exams are now over I figured I would play around a bit with it. When I browse wikipedia I often click from link to link, and have come to the conclusion that all articles are 6 degrees of separation. For example I can go from Ubuntu to Tesco to Japan to G8 to United States to George W. Bush bet you never knew Ubuntu was connected to George W. Bush. I once wrote a map of the internet program that people seemed to like to download and modify so in that spirit I wrote wikimap.py to map wikipedia. wikimap.py Requires pygraphviz (Install using sudo aptitude install python-pygraphviz). To use the program simply run the program and give it the wiki page name for example “python wikimap.py Norman_Graham” Note that Ubuntu is Ubuntu_(Linux_distribution) and you can find the full name in the address bar of your browser. For more complicated maps use wikimap.py –help for full usage info.

Here are a few examples that I created with wikimap.py


And a really large one being viewed in inkscape.

More examples including the dot files can be found at http://www.files.earobinson.org/wiki/. But there are a few features I would like to add:

1. Generating the graph using python-pygraphviz currently takes a really long time and I would like to be able to do it faster
2. Page links currently include templates, I would like to only use links in the body of the text
3. It would be nice if the software cached previously seen connections. (But then I need to detect updates to that page)

If anyone has a nice simple soultion to any of those problems leave a comment. Also if you are able to generate any neat images I would love to see them.

Tags: api, graphviz, internet, Linux, map, Programing, Python, sandbox, Ubuntu, wikipedia, wikis

I know that this has been done before but it seems to go around every once in a while and I always have fun reading them. So once again here are my top 10 commands.

My Computer

earobinson@MinusOne:~$ history|awk '{a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}'|sort -rn|head
143 cd
114 ls
53 make
48 svn
34 svnup
18 sh
12 cat
11 rm
11 geany
9 touch
earobinson@MinusOne:~$ alias svnup
alias svnup='. /media/data/dev/scripts/svnup/svnup.sh'

Laptop

earobinson@NaN:~$ history|awk '{a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}'|sort -rn|head
138 make
82 ls
70 cd
41 cmake
33 svn
19 svnup
18 cat
16 man
12 ./A/runA
10 geany
earobinson@NaN:~$ alias svnup
alias svnup='. /media/data/dev/scripts/svnup/svnup.sh'

Girlfriends Computer

earobinson@Null:~$ history|awk '{a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] " " i}}'|sort -rn|head<strong>
49 espeak
7 sudo
1 vi
1 top
1 ssh
1 man
1 ls
1 history|awk
1 history
1 exit
earobinson@Null:~$ espeak "love ya baby"

Tags: commands, shell, terminal, top 10

Today I updated to wordpress 2.5, and I have to say its great. I love the new interface. As well as updating in response to all the websites stealing planet Ubuntu content I am going to try using the ©Feed plugin for wordpress. So we will see how that goes and I hope the plugin is not to invasive for people.

I am also loving playing with the Hardy Heron Beta and am looking forward to upgrading all my machines when it officially comes out.

In other news my girlfriend has now been using Ubuntu since Christmas and has promised to help me write a post about her experience.

Edit: I have nothing against other sites hosting my posts as long as I get a backlink.

Tags: plugin, plugins, random, rss, Ubuntu, upgrade, wordpress, wordpress 2.5

APT-URL is one of my favorite programs. The great thing about it is I can keep a list of programs I like on a website and easily install all the program I like on a new box, or point someone new to Ubuntu to the website with all my favorite programs. The problem is that with the personal package archives, letting users run there own repositories on launchpad, and many great programs using there own repository’s you need to add them to your source.list file before you can use any of those great programs.

My solution, let APT-URL add a repository after giving a warning of course. Is this dangerous, sure it is but we can take a similar approach to this that Firefox does, only let trusted websites add to the source.list file. So on a trusted website like launchpad you would get a message like “launchpad.net is trying to add the following repository” compared to a random website that might say “wiki.earobinson.org is trying to add a repository if this is a trusted website please click yes otherwise click no”. This would add some risk but the benefit to the user is huge. Please support this idea by voting for it at the Ubuntu brainstorm.

Tags: apt-url, feature, idea, install, repository, request, Ubuntu, ubuntu brainstorm, vote

I love planets, both the ones in the sky’s, and the ones on the web. But this post is about the latter. One of the things about the web is that you have profiles everywhere, and while openID partly solves this problem allowing me to use one user name to authenticate everywhere it does not solve the problem that people have to visit a bunch of different sites to find out about me. They need to visit my facebook profile to find out what I’m up to, last.FM to see what music I’m into, Digg to see what I’m digging (but I can never decide if I like Digg or not), and the list goes on. I guess if something really important happens, like the launch of Ubuntu brainstorm, I can always blog about it or Digg it but I’m not about to go blogging or digging everything I see. There are a few facebook apps that allow me to display my google reader info on my facebook page and thats kinda cool but I want it all in one place.

My solution planet earobinson, this lets me put any content I have with a rss feed onto my own personal planet its kinda what I’m up to everywhere and until I find a better way to link all my content into one place I’m sticking with it. Google’s open social has some promise but as of right now i’m only linked to my last.FM profile.

So how do you keep all your content in one place?

Tags: content, digg, earobinson, google, google reader, open id, open social, planet, Ubuntu, web browsing