Spook Alley 2007 Intro
The theme this year is “Aladdin - The Cave of Wonders”
Imagine this as the entrance:
Filed under: Announcements, Spook Alley on August 10th, 2007 | No Comments »
Converting Ubuntu to Mac OSX
Personally, I like ubuntu as my linux distro of choice. It has the best usability, support, and package management of all the distros I have used. However, ubuntu defaults to an ugly orange/brown color and it still has a linux look to it, which isn’t necessarily bad but I like the gui of mac osx much better. I decided to merge the two and have ubuntu with a mac face, which is possible due to the configurability of gnome. This is a guide of what I did to change ubuntu to mac osx. I got the idea from Lauri Taimila’s website. Lauri guide, however, is outdated and a little incomplete, so I am writing my own guide which should be a bit fresher.
Everybody likes screenshots, so I’ll try to include lots of screenshots as I do this guide. So to start out, some shots of the finished version.
First things first. You need ubuntu. This guide was written using Ubuntu 7.04 but it also applies to older versions (6.06 and 6.10 I think). It is necessary to have Gnome installed. It is possible to install gnome after you have installed KDE, but I strongly discourage do so, as there are other things which get messed up, so I reccommend, in that case, reinstalling ubuntu with gnome.
This guide will configure the following aspects of gnome to look like OSX:
- Desktop wallpaper
- Window Controls (scrollbar, buttons, etc.)
- Mouse Cursor
- Icons
- Login Screen
- Splash Screen
- Windows Borders
- Main Menu Icon
- Panels
- Firefox
To start off, you will need some software installed. So open up synaptic ( System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager ). You will want to make sure you have the right repositories. Click: Setting > Repositories. If not already, check the option that says “Community-maintained Open Source Software (universe)”. Click Close and then Reload. You will need to install the following packages:
- gdesklets-data
- gnome-themes-extras
- gnome-splashscreen-manager
- beagle
Once those are installed, we are ready to begin. Next we need to download the right themes, icons, etc. from gnome design communities. There are four main packages you will need to download. Right click on the links and select “Save Link As…” to download them.
For this tutorial, I’ll assume everything is downloaded to your desktop. After you download everything, open up the mac-osx-bundle and extract the mac-osx-bundle folder to your desktop. You can now delete the 28686-mac-osx-bundle.tar.gz file.
To start installing your themes, select System > Preferences > Theme. Click on the “Install Theme…” button. Navigate to your desktop and select the “30859-T-ish_v3.2.tar.gz” file and click “Open”. Click on the “Install Theme…” button again. Navigate to your desktop and open the “mac-osx-bundle” folder and select the “mac-osx-controls.tar.gz” file and click “Open”.
Click on the “Customize…” button. Under the “Controls” tab, select “mac-osx-controls”. Under the “Window Border” tab, select “T-ish-Ubuntulooks”. Under the “Icons” tab, click the “Install…” button. Navigate to your desktop and select the “OSX3.3.tar.gz” file and click “Open”. Click on the “Apply New Theme” button. Click the “Close” button and the “Close” button again. You have now installed your themes.
To install the cursor theme, right click on the “install-cursor.sh” file on your desktop and click on “Properties”. Under the “Permissions” tab, check the “Allow executing file as program” box and click close. Double click on the “install-cursor.sh” file. Click on the “Run” button. You need to log off and back on in order to see your new cursor theme.
Right click on the “menu-bar-setup.sh” file on your desktop and click on “Properties”. Under the “Permissions” tab, check the “Allow executing file as program” box and click close. Double click on the “menu-bar-setup.sh” file. Click on the “Run in Terminal” button. Enter in your password when prompted for it.
To Be continued…
Filed under: Linux, Mac on July 9th, 2007 | No Comments »
Word of the Day: Canonicalization
I think that I will start doing a word of the day when I come across interesting words.
Today’s word is Canonicalization. I saw this one in a group policy dealing with a special version of PuTTY.
A definition: Canonicalization is the process of converting data that has more than one possible representation into a “standard” canonical representation. This can be done to compare different representations for equivalence, to count the number of distinct data structures (e.g., in combinatorics), to improve the efficiency of various algorithms by eliminating repeated calculations, or to make it possible to impose a meaningful sorting order.
The context that I saw this in was dealing with DNS. It was DNS canonicalization which is querying DNS in order to append a domain to the end of a hostname.
Filed under: Windows, Word of the Day, Networking on May 18th, 2007 | No Comments »
A sudo joke…
I found this and thought it was pretty funny…
Filed under: Linux, Humor on May 1st, 2007 | No Comments »
Rhetorical Analysis: Ben Hur
After watching the Ben Hur movie clip, the first thing that came to mind was the focus on people. The movie would show scenes of people; all doing one thing or another, and it would not place much focus on the setting, but enough just to get some background. In doing this, there was much emphasis placed on the facial expressions. The characters would express through their faces how they felt extremely well, and it would create the tone of the scene. This is very different that more modern movies where the mood is less generated by faces, and more by dialogue or other means. In order to use the face to create the mood in Ben Hur, the movie would often show extended scenes of just the face, that is, the scene would be longer than a normal facial shot, just to convey the level of emotion. There was also much lighting rhetoric done in the movie. The lighting was used for many things, such as to convey action, mood, or emphasis. When showing action, there would be moving shadows, such as Christ carrying the cross. When showing mood, the light level would be changed to something where the hue, density, and intensity more appropriately reflects the mood, such as after Christ is crucified, the lighting is dark and sparse, which reflected the dark and depressing atmosphere.
Filed under: English 150, Rhetorical Analysis on April 12th, 2007 | No Comments »
Free Write: One Crazy Summer
For most people, summer is a time to get out of school, forget about everything, and be lazy and take things slow. Well, I am not one of those people. It has been long standing in our family that June is the busiest month of the year. This year might just be the busiest. June starts out with a trip to Washington D.C. for the first whole week. The following week, some of my family leaves for girl’s camp while some others leave for a scouting camp. The third week of June consists of a trip to Lake Powell with the extended family. Not only does this take up the week’s time at the lake, but it takes up weeks before it in preparation. For the last week in June, I leave for Chicago and Nashville for conferences, which happen to be at the same time, so I will be flying back and forth between the two cities. Not only are all of the weeks of June filled up with trips out of town, but there are four immediate family birthdays, sixteen extended family birthdays, my parent’s anniversary, and a family reunion.
Filed under: English 150, Free Write on April 10th, 2007 | No Comments »
Rhetorical Analysis: Research Paragraph
“The demographics of newspapers readership are more than discouraging for the industry. Young people, simply put, are not reading the newspaper as much as their parents or grandparents did – and the numbers keep declining with each new generation. One study found that in 1972 a majority of the people in every age group above the age of 30 read a newspaper every day; three decades later, in 2002, daily newspaper reader were in the majority only among people in their late 50s or older.”
This paragraph equally demonstrates usage of pathos, logos, and ethos. The very first paragraph very distinctly directs the reader emotions of discouragement and distress. It adds emphasis on the emotion with the phrase “more than discouraging”. By doing this it points out just the deep level of discouragement involved. The next sentence is a simple fact of the issue at hand, but by adding the phrase “simply put” it adds credibility to the author. It does this by emphasizing the point that the author isn’t just concerned about facts, but shows that the author is concerned about the audience, enough to paraphrase the detailed facts and explanations. The last paragraph talks about a study conducted and the results of the study. By referencing this study, it builds the author’s credibility because of the acknowledgment of a bigger source. But also be referencing this study, it builds the logical argument of the issue by addressing straight statistics.
The first sentence references a current state of time. In doing this, it creates the level of importance of the issue as being urgent and current. With the discussion of the study, it talks about the decreasing readership as a process over time, which builds the pressing urgency of the issue. By doing these things, the paragraph creates a strong level of kairos.
Filed under: English 150, Rhetorical Analysis on April 8th, 2007 | No Comments »
Writing Technique: Revision
The following is a revision of a previous post:
During this past week, I competed in BYU’s national Dancesport competition. I primarily competed standard events, such as the tango and foxtrot. I competed these events in the silver and gold level respectively. I also competed a little bit of latin; the rumba. I competed this at the gold level. I made it to the quarter finals in my standard dances and to the semi finals in the rumba.
I also competed an open event: Novice Standard. This competition is particularily difficult because the choreography is not limited by normal steps. In other words, there were some very good dancers competing this event. Needless to say, I didn’t make any callbacks. Irregardless of the outcome, it was still fun.
On Saturday, I watched the beginning classes compete. When the Dance 180 class competed the bronze level cha cha, the Master of Ceremonies announced that there were over two hundred and fifty couples competing. After everybody competed once, all the couples entered the floor at once and danced at the same time. I was amazed at the sheer number of competitors.
Later that Saturday night, I watched the finals of the cabaret competition. I was astonished by this particular genre dance. It involved a single couple on the floor at a time, and the man would lift the lady as they danced and would all sorts of amazing tricks and lifts. At the end of Saturday night, there was an invitational professional competition where four of the top professional couples from the United States competed. These couples danced the five international Latin American dances and were accompanied by a live percussion band, which played along with the music. The energy level of these professional dancers was out of this world.
Filed under: English 150, Writing Technique on March 27th, 2007 | No Comments »
Rhetorical Analysis: Highway to the Danger Zone
The following is a rhetorical analysis for the music video of “Highway to the Danger Zone”. In this music video, the audience that it is directed at is those who generally enjoy ‘living on the edge’ or those who either enjoy or are close to dangerous situations. In the video, there are many clips involving scenes of fighter planes and jets. By referencing this, it provides a connection between audio and visual. It links the lyrics and music about danger to the visuals of the dangers of jets. Also in the music video, there is a brief ‘bedroom scene’ which builds upon the dangerous lifestyle the video depicts. By singing about and showing scenes of ‘danger zones’ the music video creates emotions of excitement through high-adrenaline situations. Also in the music video, the singer is located primarily lying on a bed as he sings. By including completely bland scenes, it adds contrast to the other parts of the music video. That is, if the music video was all action, by the time the end comes around, the action scenes will appear as normal scenes. But by including strong contrasting scenes, it helps maintain the thrill level the action scenes generate.
Filed under: English 150, Rhetorical Analysis on March 22nd, 2007 | No Comments »