Xmas and New Year best wishes

Here is Santa trying to deliver in Australia:

Another year gone by!

I will be taking a break at the start of 2019, for a couple of weeks. Will probably still do a little bit of EasyOS development, 'coz I am addicted. But very light, and won't be getting onto the Internet much.

After the break, the plan is to bring out EasyOS version 1.0. It is positioned as an "experimental distribution", so I have an "out", it doesn't have to be as polished as the mainstream Linux distributions.

I would like to thank you guys who have helped with testing during 2018. The feedback has been extremely helpful and has resulted in many improvements and bug fixes. 

Tags: general

amazon.com countdown

A few days ago, I impulsively placed an order with Amazon for three more books on OpenEmbedded and Yocto.

I already have two books, one of which is a light overview and I donated that to the local library. OE/Yocto is very complicated, and I want to move a bit further up the learning curve. Online docs are not enough for me.

After placing the order, I read this:

https://ausdroid.net/2018/05/31/amazon-ban-aussie-visitors-global-marketplace-due-gst-changes-taking-effect-1-july-2018/

Australians have enjoyed import-duty-free purchases under AU$1,000 for many years. A long time ago, there used to be import duty, now it is coming back.

July 1, 2018, 10% GST (Goods and Services Tax) will be applied to imported goods. Apparently, Amazon USA has a problem with complying, so will redirect Aussies to amazon.com.au -- unfortunately, the local site has far less on offer.

However, I searched amazon.com.au and found the same books that I had ordered from the USA, and slightly cheaper. For example:

https://www.amazon.com.au/Embedded-Linux-Development-Project-Cookbook/dp/1788399218

...odd, they give the UK distributor as the default supplier (AU$71.29), whereas it is available cheaper from Amazon AU (AU$63.79). Price works out about the same as USA, except it is cheaper as postage from Amazon AU is free.

Anyway, if you want to buy from amazon.com, you have until the end of the month!

Tags: general

Merry Xmas 2017

To all you guys who are reading this, have a nice Xmas break! Like these guys:

Wallpaper is from this collection:

https://itsfoss.com/christmas-linux-wallpaper/

I would like to keep working on Easy and Quirky, but getting into holiday mode so that side of things will be slow for awhile. One thing that I want to do is get printing working with QuickSamba, but that might also be delayed a bit.

Tags: general

Old blogs archived

I had two old blogs, set to read-only, at barryk.org/blog and barryk.org/blog2, however, had to remove them as my host hostgator.com complained of too much traffic.

I was meaning to convert them to static HTML pages, and finally have done it. Found a great tool for the job, Httrack. It has a browser interface, by running "webhttrack".

I re-enabled the online blogs and used webhttrack to download one of them. Oh, it downloaded heaps of files from other sites, mostly linked images.
After some online searching, found the trick to restrain download to only inside the blog.

There are "Scan Rules". Delete them, replace with:
-* +*arryk.org/blog/* -*/?delete=*

The "-*" removes everything, then "+*arryk.org/blog/*" will restrain downloads to have that text in the URL.

Httrack follows every link that it can find on the blog, which takes a very long time. I did not see the point of it following the Delete button, so added that fine filter item.

The old blogs are now here:
http://bkhome.org/archive/

This blog, barryk.org/news, is also there, converted to static pages, as I am planning to move to a new blog script (and website) in the next day or two.

Another item of news: bkhome.org is now on a new host, omnis.com

Tags: general

Issy Simpson, magician

Ha ha, have been too serious, all these blog posts on Linux development. Now for something lighter...

I have been watching Britain's Got Talent on and off. Was most entertained by Issy Simpson. Don't know how she did most of it.

Here is her first performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSYa6_Siivs



Assuming that it is not "real" magic, I think that I know how she did the box. Very simple actually. She just needed one of those suction cups that are used for lifting glass, builtin to the base of the box.

Like this one, that sticks and releases in seconds:
http://btbtools.com/index.php/auto-glass-tools/glass-handling/vacuum-suction-cups-window-holders/sac123.html

Tags: general

Seagate 4TB desktop drive

I was considering purchasing a NAS (Network Attached Storage), however, decided on a simpler solution to my scattered storage problem -- one nice big portable drive.

Today bought a Seagate Expansion 4TB hard drive, for AU$199:
https://www.officeworks.com.au/shop/officeworks/p/seagate-4tb-expansion-desktop-hard-drive-sgex4000de


As it has its own power supply, no problem with plugging this into any of my arm boards. So, can move it around as needed.

I own a 2.5 inch 2TB USB3 drive, that will probably get relegated to a backup role.

Tags: general

Thunderbolt3, do-everything interface

Intel has made licensing of the Thunderbolt3 interface "free", in an attempt to encourage its adoption.

As reported here:
http://www.cnx-software.com/2017/05/25/intel-to-make-thunderbolt-3-royalty-free-release-specifications/

Fascinating! I look forward to seeing this on a mobile phone.
PCs too. Apparently, Apple and Microsoft are in on this. Intel plan to integrate Thunderbolt3 into the CPU chip, thus ensuring its adoption on the PC platform.

See also the announcement at intel.com:
https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/envision-world-thunderbolt-3-everywhere/

Tags: general

Website is back

Had to wrangle for a few days with my host, Hostgator. Back in November 2016, I had to disable barryk.org/blog, as there was apparently too much traffic on it. Now, barryk.org/blog2 has too much traffic, so also disabled.
These are both archived read-only blogs, with lots of good reference material about Puppy Linux. Pity they are now down.

Received an email from David, reporting that Hostgator has a new owner in 2016, and there are many reports of the service going downhill.

It is odd that my site has been there with much the same content for years, only recently is experiencing this traffic problem.

Jamesbond suggested an alternative host, might consider that.

Tags: general