Category Archives: Ramblings

Ramblings& musings, related and relevant… or not.

Grumbles, Ramblings, YukYuks

Who “gets” Internet and who doesn’t

Oh, joy… we have a federal election on May 2nd.

Being concerned about big ISP monopolies who had lobbied for per-user data caps and an “anti-Internet set of “Lawful Access” policies that would have Internet providers collect personal information without court oversight” The Portable Consultant  “signed” this petition by OpenMedia.ca and they sent an email on my behalf to my local Member of Parliament.

Minutes later I get the following auto-response from my MP’s parliamentary email address:
—
“Response sent April 12, 2011

“Thank you for your e-mail.

“Due to the election please contact mike@mikewallace.ca .

“The Campaign Office is located at 4460 Fairview Street, Unit B-101, in the plaza at the corner of Fairview and Appleby Line. -www.mikewallace.ca
—

…and I have to laugh at the automated email responder that tells me the email address to forward mail to but is not set up to forward the email automatically!

Once again politicians, government in general, prove that they do NOT “get” the Internet. It seems they still don’t even understand how to handle email.

Since his office is just around the corner I will PRINT the email for my Honourable Member of Parliament and deliver it in person – with a huge grin on my face.

Thanks for the chuckles, Government of Canada (aka “The Harper Government” ™)

Cheers,
-pmh

Open Source, Ramblings

Scanning with Kubuntu requires research

The Portable Consultant was given the task of scanning and printing Favourite Daughter’s class schedule today.

It was not as easy as it could have been.

Had I been running Windows at the time it would have been semi-automatic, of course. But, no, I was running Kubuntu – the KDE version of the popular Ubuntu Linux – and I had never reached out to my old HP ScanJet in that environment before.

Naturally, I googled official Kubuntu documentation. The documentation said “Software wise Kubuntu comes with the application Kooka, the KDE scanning and OCR installed”… and then told me exactly where in the menu system to find Kooka.

No such luck.

Google’s top hit was out of date documentation. There is no Kooka in the LTS 10.4 Kubuntu version.

Next I turned to Ubuntu.org’s documentation where there were pointers to the Kubuntu distribution. (Generally, Ubuntu assumes you are running Gnome rather than KDE so Kubuntu stuff can be off in the corner somewhere and the big Search field at the top of the page will not be of much help.)

Anyway, here I found reference to SANE (‘Scanner Access Now Easy’) the full-featured Linux package. This is so full-featured, however, that it comes with a huge list of dependencies – related packages that are required for SANE to install. There were so many of these that it looked as if much of Gnome had to be installed before SANE would work.

So I continued my research.

Finally, I came across a discussion group posting that pointed out Open Office had built-in scanning functionality under the ‘Insert-Picture-Scan’ menu sequence… so this is what I used.

I could also have installed ‘Simple Scan’ from the Kubuntu software package list but I already had Open Office on my system so I avoided adding more software by using that.

What is the moral of this story? With desktop Linux, even the most simple tasks require some research.

I should mention that I went through a similar exercise to get Kubuntu to ‘see’ my printer. I did not have that issue with mainstream Ubuntu.

Cheers,
-pmh

Emerging, New Media, New Paradigms, Ramblings

Who’s picking your playlist?

“A sort of view of the world” for music company executives:
None of this will be of any interest to anyone under 30. They, or you, just do it without thinking. In fact, it’s probably only those over 40 who even talk about it. After all, as Don Tapscott points out, folks in my age cohort don’t particularly care how a terrestrial radio or television works. we just turn it on.

So this is the first time since picking up Tapscott’s Grown Up Digital that the Portable Consultant watched what he was really doing as he searched for interesting content on the Net. He now has a greater appreciation for what’s happening here:

Join the dots…
A friend tells me, via email, about a song their kids like and includes a this link to the Hide and Seek video by Imogen Heap.

Yes, I like the song (actually, I’m struck by similarities to Kate Bush) and check Heap’s Wikipedia entry where…

…I find out that, yes, others have made comparisons to Kate Bush’s style and…

…I go(ogle) to Imogen Heap’s web site where I spot a link to…

…her Twitter page where I see she’s got an online concert tonight!, so I…

…loop back an email with that last link to my friend suggesting that they might want to catch the concert too.

But then, since I’m liking the music and I now know she’s got a new album out…

…I check out First Train Home, one of Imogen’s other videos on YouTube and,…

…in the YouTube page’s Video Responses list, I spot an acoustic cover by Anne Legras, who, yes, blows me away so I check out Anne’s YouTube channel, too and…

…loop back again to my friend with a link to another Legras’ YouTube video of L’encre de tes Yeux, a song that almost immediately became one of my favourite songs of all time!

Alright. This, of course, is exactly what everyone under 30 (and many under 40’s) are doing with music. No surprise.

Shining the spotlight…
I have to smile when I hear Roger Faxon, head of EMI, interviewed on a podcast by The Economist. Mr. Faxon takes pains to justify his business’ role in the modern music scene – describing the need for “shining the spotlight” on new performers that deserve to stand out. Explaining why it is necessary for his business to choose the hits Faxon says: “There’s this sort of view of the world that the Internet is this huge democracy and everybody gets to vote. Most people don’t want to vote.”

Nothing new there either, right? There are whole political parties that base their campaigns on that premise. Why shouldn’t those of us who enjoy popular music just follow along as well.

Who makes the choices now?
Still, I can’t help feeling that unless Big Music adapts itself to the world of social networking their business model is doomed. We are now in an environment where a personal search for the music of Imogen Heap (who is, by the way, an indie artist) can uncover a Parisian metro busker with “undiscovered” talent. Now that such undiscovered performers have the capability to make and sell their CD or mp3 directly to me, why in this world wouldn’t I vote for what I want to hear? It’s all about who makes the choices, now.

All the best for your future success, Anne. I’ll be pointing my friends in your direction.

Cheers!

-pmh