August 2007 Archives
It wasn't a long uptime; as we'd just moved into this new house in January. But after over seven months of uptime (and about two years before that), I am saddened to report that my main work computer went down in a sea of ozone-laced smoke this afternoon.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a Facebook invitation from noted Linux author Marcel Gagné.
I tell you this not because I am name-dropping, but because I am wondering what the heck I am going to do with a Facebook entry? Which I have now, because it's been a very long time since I've heard a peep from Marcel and I didn't want to offend him by ignoring the invitation.
Mr. Social Grace, that's me.
I feel like I am watching one of those movies that looks like it's almost wrapping up with a big finish... and then all of a sudden it seems to be another half-hour of plot exposition as the director and writers finally yank the storyline over to where the ending should be, instead of where they were taking it.
I refer to the much-talked about ruling from Federal Judge Dale Kimball in the SCO v. Novell case. Everyone is chiming in with an opinion on what they think is going to happen now.
Believe me, so am I. Went to dinner with the family, came back, and boom! The site seems dead.
Luckily, the Blog is on another server and has a separate content management system. Here's what I know thus far: bupkis. Based on the error messages I see, it looks like the MySQL database bit the dust. LT was flaky earlier today, when the actual server crashed a couple of times, taking LinuxPR and JustLinux down with it.
Now it looks like the database is the culprit. I have contacted the sysadmins, but it's late on the East Coast, and they may not get the message until tomorrow.
Sorry for the inconvenience. It's been over a year since the server had downtime, so I suppose we can count that as something.
For reasons involving more of a personal need to slow down traveling than anything else, I opted not to go to LinuxWorld Expo this year.
What clinched it for me, I think, were the five days spent in Portland a couple of weeks ago for Ubuntu Live and OSCON. Good shows, to be sure, but I think that personally and professionally, I have seen enough of the free and open source community for a while, and they--most assuredly--have seen enough of me.
Not that one can ever really escape the effects of an event as large as LinuxWorld. Even remotely, there is plenty of news to gather. The magic of the Internet and the phone allows me to be practically there, though without all the good restaurants.
That was the initial reaction I had when I first learned about Blue GNU, a new free software news and information site that just launched yesterday. In fact, I was responding to the the founder of that site, who'd asked me to take a look at it a couple of weeks ago to see what I thought.
The space in which Linux Today competes is a bit of a crowded one these days, as the huge increase in Linux, open source, and free software news means there's certainly a need for sites like LXer, FSDaily, Tuxmachines, and--now--Blue GNU. Even if I, like many an only child, don't like to share.