This is a recipe for creating a web development environment using Ubuntu 8.04 64 bit. I tried using 9.04, but it was just too buggy and kept leaving orphaned inodes behind. I’ll bet I cleanly installed 8 times before today, when I went back down to 8.04. I am not disappointed that I can’t seem to get along with 9.04, just a little irritated that I wasted a ton of time installing. Anyway, not to complain too much about it — here’s the laundry list of stuff I’ve got to have installed and configured to develop web. Downloading and installing Ubuntu from the Live CD all the way through these steps takes about four hours, so get comfortable. I’m assuming you’ve got Ubuntu installed, so here’s the customizations I apply.

1. You need a decent web editor. The best one I’ve found is Quanta Plus. It’s got a somewhat usable WYSIWYG editor.

info: http://quanta.kdewebdev.org/

To Install - Use System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager
Search for Quanta, check box, apply changes.

2. Gedit, the Text Editor that is installed with Ubuntu, can be a fairly robust script editor with the right plugins. In fact, it’s pretty cool. You can get a terminal pane on the bottom of the editor and your file list on the left, plus more. First, get the most useful gedit package of plugins here: http://live.gnome.org/GeditPlugins. Then read the full list of available plugins, go to http://live.gnome.org/Gedit/Plugins.

Here are the plugins I have enabled:

From the extra plugins package (you can install these as a bundle from your Synaptic Package Manager (search for gedit):

• Bracket Completion
• Code Comment
• Color Picker
• Document Statistics
• Embedded Terminal
• File Browser Pane
• Indent Lines
• Insert Date/Time
• Modelines
• Snippets
• Spell Checker
• Tag List

From the list:

• Browser Preview 1.03
• HTML tidy
• Lastdocs

To install most plugins, unzip the file to ~/.gedit2/plugins/ and re-run Gedit (Text Editor). Then enable / configure the plugins from Edit>Preferences>Plugins.

3. Go grab the Firefox add-on that lets you inspect a variety of items and outline tables, etc. within the browser.
Web Development Firefox Plugin: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60

4. Install the web, php, mysql server stuff you need to develop locally. This is where we’ve got to get to that terminal prompt (yeah, you’ve got to type or cut and paste stuff). Fire up your terminal, and type:
sudo apt-get -y install mysql-server apache2 libapache2-mod-php5 php5 php5-mysql

This installs (on my version of Ubuntu):

• Apache/2.2.11 (Ubuntu)
• PHP/5.2.6-3ubuntu4.1 with Suhosin-Patch
• MySQL 5.075

Edit /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default to point to where you want to keep your web files. So type:
sudo gedit /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default
and find the document root directory - change it to where you plan on keeping your development files.

Now, restart your server
sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Create info.php in your web document root (you can use gedit)
< ?php
phpinfo();
?>

In a browser, http://localhost/info.php should give you lots of information about what you just installed.

5. Install PHPmyAdmin, a web based database manager so you can deal with mysql in your environment.

In your terminal, type
sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

Let Apache know phpmyadmin is there and what it needs.
sudo gedit /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

Add the following line of code inside apache2.conf:

Include /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf

Now restart Apache:

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Test by logging in to http://localhost/phpmyadmin

6. Install Flash 10 (a bit of a pain on 64 Bit)
http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-Install-Adobe-Flash-Player-64-bit-on-Ubuntu-8-10-98076.shtml

7. Install Skype 64 Bit
http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-ubuntu-amd64

8. Start coding!

Hope that is a good recipe. If you’ve got any other ideas, please add comments! I’d appreciate it

It was a lot of fun. Here’s a video of the Smokin’ Toasters doing their thing. Sometimes, simple is better.

“… I must also take issue with the assertion that these people are "ironing with finesse." In most of the photographs I've seen, they aren't ironing at all. The irons aren't powered, and the clothes in many cases are positioned quite oddly. In most of the videos I've found, the 'ironers' simply seem to wave the iron around randomly, and press it against clothes in ways that wouldn't be at all effective if one were actually ironing.

“I can see this as an amusing joke, but it does seem odd that despite the practicality of actually doing what they claim to be doing, few, if any, really do iron.

Extreme ironing, an adventure sport for people who like laundry - Boing Boing.”

Um, yeah.

Dude! You gotta have one of these. Scented (really!) laptops are now available from Asus. ASUSTeK Computer Inc..

Floral Blossom
In glorious pink, this design evokes the imagery of a summer party, leaving the somber feel of conventional laptop designs far behind with its cheerful, floral motif and a floral scent – the most attractive laptop for ladies!
Musky Black
Boasting a glossy black surface emblazoned with a colorful motif inspired by extreme sports and graffiti art, this model emanates power, daring, and energy with its playfulness and musky scent.
Morning Dew
Realized in a pastel green hue, this graphic motif is inspired by the love and respect for nature. Return to the embrace of Mother Nature for a crisp and refreshing awakening of the senses whenever you work on your notebook.
Aqua Ocean
The freedom afforded by a boundless expanse of sky and the energy of breaking waves are captured perfectly on the cover of this notebook. The matching invigorating aquatic scent will keep your days energized!

Rock on….

I love Moleskines. The fine little notebook that’s convenient and classic. There is something about them that’s just ineffable. The paper feels right, and they have a utilitarian design that is appealing. I’ve used one for years. In fact, I’ve got several. I like the small ones that have just a few pages for keeping “minor thoughts,” and the black, hardbound one for journal entries.

When I travel, I keep one to help me remember the trip. They’re handy to carry and luxurious to write in. I’ve taken to writing in pencil, even though it will fade. I used to use my G2 pens, but I tend to scribble too much and make too many mistakes. Pencil is more forgiving. Moleskine is doing their best to market to the likes of me, and it’s working. They’ve come up with a lot of sites, and so have their fans. Check out moleskinerie for starters. Then there’s Moleskine City and many more. The main Moleskine site has more links. It’s like journal pron. Somehow it feels self-indulgent to fill its fine pages with my meager thoughts.

A couple of months ago, my Sony notebook fell into disrepair. I took it on a South Texas road trip, where it got it’s USB ports banged together, then when we got back home, it had a bad fall. Luckily, most of my data lives on thumb drives, so all was good… except for a few things I hadn’t backed up. The long and short of it was, I found myself having to replace little once trusty machine. I had been running dual-boot XP and Ubuntu, and I wanted something that I could do the same thing with. Joe was convinced I should purchase the be-all, end-all in notebooks, and not spare any money, so I went shopping. It took me about a week to decide on the Dell XPS M1730. It wasn’t cheap, but man, is it cool.
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A couple of weeks ago, Woot! ran a special on Roombas, the little robot that scurries around and vacuums your house. Being the geek that I am, I’ve always wanted one (or two). These were cheap enough, and not refurbished, so I purchased two of them to live around the cat litter boxes and clean the ever-present dog hair tumbleweeds from several rooms in the house. These are my impressions of my new robotic maids.
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Watching the opening of the Olympics from Beijing, two days later. The guys in the boxes were my favorites, otherwise, the opening from Greece had this all beat. Mostly, this was like the rest cheesy Chinese extruded plastic stuff we get from China.

“Apple, through its marketing and visual design techniques, is manufacturing an illusion that merely buying an Apple makes you part of an alternative community. But the technology they use is explicitly chosen to divide people into separate digital cells, and to position Apple as sole warden. When your business depends on people paying for the privilege of being locked up, the prison better look and feel luxurious, and the bars better not be too visible.” - Free Software Foundation
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