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Hrmf. My allergy to mold seems to be getting the best of me. I didn't get much of anything done yesterday and moved like molasses today. Oh well, it rained tonight, so I hope the mold count will be down tomorrow.
Buzzing by Buzzing Bye, I found this post that was denouncing Richard Stallman's position that “Linux” should be known as “GNU/Linux.” This hit a nerve, perhaps because I've seen so many likeminded posts, and it inspired me to write an editorial at OfB.biz that argues for the name GNU/Linux and also takes a side journey into why the GNU GPL is better in some ways than the BSD license.
Whether this sounds like gobble-de-gook or you already understand this issue, you might enjoy the opinion piece, which you can find here.
You are Ferris Beuller. You b———! Everyone
want's to be Ferris. Now go back and answer the
questions properly.
Which 80's Movie Character Are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Thanks go to Christopher for finding this.
Phew… it has been HOT. I told Christopher that I wanted a bit of warm weather for swimming, but this has been overboard! On Thursday we set a new record of 104 degrees Fahrenheit for that day — if I understand correctly what the meteorologists were saying, it was also the first time in 19 years that we've hit 104 degrees. It was cooler, although not much, the last two days, so I guess that's progress.
The Thinklings, by way of What in Tarnation!?!?!?!, asks: What are your top five sitcoms?
Well, I'm not a big TV watcher, but I've pondered this and included my picks below. What are yours?
Craig “Pressed” Tanner of Avoiding Evil has been doing an interesting series on the controversy between the Southern Baptist Convention and the CBF. Seeing some of this controversy reminded me of the controversy in the denomination that I grew up in, the United Church of Christ. I had always meant to write a post about the UCC, and I thought now might be appropriate.
This is a departure from my normal content here, but I wanted to take a moment to thank the wonderful folks at HostingMatters web hosting. Looking at my file modification dates, it seems that I officially migrated to HM two years ago today. I haven't regretted it one bit.
I've gone through a lot of web hosts. I've used seven (five commercial), and over the last two or three searches I also created a 20-something point questionnaire that each host was inspected by — and I inspected a lot, something to the tune of probably 800-1,000 companies in 1999 and 2001. Very few hosts met my criteria, even fewer earned my trust to actually deal with them.
I've had ups and downs in commercial web hosting. I first moved away from free web hosting to DataRealm. They were fine, although there plans were just too expensive for what they offered. After spending most of 1997 with them, I moved on in April 1998. I then moved to SmartHosting.com. They started out great, but my site was down a lot, their control panel wasn't very good, and it was often impossible to get a response — after one issue in early 2000, I finally had to phone them long distance after having my site down for a week. Things got worse and the whole deal ended with a $90 overcharge in July of 2000 (I hadn't been really using them since October 1999).
I had known things were going down hill for awhile so I had already started migrating in the fall of 1999 to BurstNET. They were fairly big then and are now much bigger — they have their own datacenter, etc. But in July 2001, things went from sort of unreliable to bad. They were constantly breaking Perl modules with oddball upgrades. They'd deny problems that I clearly demonstrated, etc. Nice people, but they wouldn't fix things. Finally, everything just died during the week of August 13, 2001. They got the web sites back up a day later, but after four days they were still denying the fact that e-mail was down. I needed a new host.
I tried one, which I'll not name because there was nothing wrong with it, it just wasn't for me, but they turned out to be a reseller for HostingMatters still at Alabanza (I noticed HM's domain in the e-mail headers of the welcome message). I jumped over to HostingMatters and everything looked like exactly what I wanted and more. So I signed up.
And what a great decision that was. Annette set me up with exactly the plan I wanted with reseller features (rather than having to get the normal reseller plan), answered all those questions I had, and got me started. The rest of the staff (or sock monkeys as they called themselves at the time) was great too. And as an added bonus the HM client community on the HM forums was delightful too!
Since part of my time with SmartHosting I had already migrated away but was still paying because I wanted to keep the subdomain I had been renting, I was really with them less than two years. Likewise I've never made it with any other host two years… except for HostingMatters. There's a reason too — they really genuinely seem to care. They are great people (I now consider one of the HM employees a friend, but that's another story), fast to respond, and their servers are ultra reliable and at a discount hosting price.
Oh, and did I mention that OfB.biz, a site of mine that is “Slashdotted” (hit by thousands of users from Slashdot.org all at once) a few times a year, is hosted there and fairs fine under the pressure? It's so good, we awared HM an award last year and at least one other large GNU/Linux site now uses HostingMatters.
If you need a host, check them out.
Christopher, Mr. Tarnation himself, sent me questions as part of the Blog Question Game that's been heading around the blogosphere. Christopher asks some interesting questions to which you will find my answers below. Mega dittos go to Christopher for being kinder to me than he was to Pressed. Hehehe.
But, before I get started, just like in a pharmaceutical commercial, you must hear the fine print: <speaking in a very rapid manor>If you want to participate, leave a comment saying “Interview Me” [or something similar that gets the point across]. I will respond by asking you five questions ~ each person's will be different. You will update your blog with answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview others in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. Some restrictions apply. See store for details. Based on an annual percentage rate of 10.98%. You may experience coughing, choking, lack of hunger, confusion, and delusions of grandeur. Do not get questions without first talking with your doctor.</speaking in a very rapid manor>
1. How much time do you spend online each day?
Far too much, since much of my work and my hobbies are computer related. Obviously, at least a full workday worth of internet usage.
2. What is your browser homepage set to?
Well, FaithTree.com, of course! <shameless plug>FaithTree.com is a project produced by my company (to revisit the last question) that is a Christian customizable portal. FaithTree.com offers customizable global, national, local, tech and sports news, weather (including local weather you can place on your page), meta search functionality (searches secular and Christian search engines plus the Bible), and more.
In other words, FaithTree.com is sorta like My Yahoo!, My MSN, or My Lycos, but with Christian content. (It also has more a better weather forcast than some sites, ahem). And new just today, I've started to add the ability to put the latest headlines from your favorite blogs on your start page along side the news and weather.
Right now, I've added all the blogs on my blogroll that I could find an XML/RSS (or RDF) feed for; I'll be adding many more Christian blogs. If your interested in using FaithTree.com and would like to see your favorite blogs included (or you want your blog included), please put the addresses for those blogs in the comments. Better yet, put the link to the XML/RSS (or RDF) file in the comment.
I'll end my shameless plug by just inviting you to take a look at FaithTree.com. During every step of development I tried to make it feature everything I liked about other customizable portals — and I hope you find that's the case for you too. If not, let me know, maybe I can add whatever your favorite feature is.</shameless plug>
3. Do you use any instant messaging programs? If so, which one(s)?
Yes. Perhaps I should elaborate — I use them all. No, I'm not some nut that likes to have bunches of applications running, I use Gaim, the universal instant messaging client for GNU/Linux (and now Windows too!). I prefer AIM, but I also have (in the order I signed up for them) ICQ, MSN, Yahoo and Jabber. Click here to get my address in your favorite IM app if you'd like to talk sometime.
4. Where was your first webpage located?
I guess that would be GeoCities. However, I quickly moved over to the free space I had on my AOL account (I got rid of AOL eons ago, don't worry!). My first real site went online August 26, 1996. It was sort of like a personal web page, but I also used it to launch my company. Since then my site morphed several times into a full blown corporate web site first offering Perl scripts, then web design and Perl scripts, and now content management solutions (along with FaithTree.com and OfB.biz: Open for Business). I just figured that the site has gone through eleven major revisions and six web hosts since 1996.
5. How long have you had your current website?
It launched in a minimalist form on April 4, 2001. My grandmother died that day and so I had nervous energy… so I created a personal web site (since my old site was no longer a personal site). It lived at uninetsolutions.com/tbutler/, until I moved to asisaid.com this March. It was originally known as simply “Tim's Site” and featured no graphics (again, minimalist design). A few months later I added a simple logo and a small navigation bar, and then in April 2002, I came up with the current design (although it was still called Tim's Site). It was just various stuff and no blog until late February 2002, however, and the blog was just an afterthought for some time after that.
At any rate, if you want to understand the title of this blog entry and find out what made me laugh a few minutes ago, read on.
Well, I've been busy writing, just not here. So, I thought, perhaps I should just post some links to what I've written elsewhere. Below are links and some thoughts on my interview with Richard M. Stallman and a little set of thoughts I had on the transition from summer to fall and its relation to the Gospel (got you intrigued?).
GNU Questions: RMS on SCO, Distributions, DRM — Want to understand the philosophical movement that got the ball rolling for GNU/Linux? It's not socialism, its Free Software. The Free Software movement was founded by Richard M. Stallman (RMS) in 1983 and has, in large part, succeeded because of the foundation RMS laid in its early years. In fact, much of the software that makes “Linux” work today was created by RMS's GNU Project, thus why I always call Linux “GNU/Linux.”
In the Open for Business article I linked to, RMS discusses with me a variety of topics including ethical questions within the context of Free Software philosophy and also questions on Digital Rights Management (DRM), the SCO Group lawsuit, and much more. There is also a link to my older interview with RMS which can be seen sort of as a primer. In fact, you might want to read that first to understand Free Software philosophy.
In essence, Free Software Philosophy argues that within the computer world there are ethical imperatives — the right to use, modify, share, and redistribute (even for a cost) the software you use. This flies in the face of the proprietary software licenses companies like Microsoft use. While many supporters of the parallel “Open Source” movement support these things for pragmatic reasons, RMS and his supporters believe it is the morally right thing to do. I respect that in this day and age of relativistic morals. Read both interviews, they are thought provoking even if you don't plan to use GNU/Linux.
While Free Software philosophy is secular in nature (RMS is an atheist), it does have some interesting connections with New Testament theology. RMS notes that the ideology behind his movement is very compatible with the concept of “Love your neighbor as yourself,” because you aren't signing contracts that prevent you from helping your neighbor get his computer doing whatever it is that he needs it to do. It's very interesting, I think.
Note: As I alluded to above, Free Software philosophy is often thought to really be socialism by those who have only a cursory knowledge of it (or who listen too much to Microsoft). It is not. Free Software supporters, unlike some supporters of the more “liberal” Open Source movement, insists on the capitalistic ability to turn a profit on Free Software. Red Hat, Inc. is living proof you can make money with Free Software.
Death of Summer — This time of year is always somewhat depressing for me. I'm not entirely sure why. However, lately I've had a different perspective on it. I blog about that at the Sakamuyo Network. Let me know what you think.
