Still no tweets from me, but I do now have 3 followers. Soon. The anticipation must be killing them. Meanwhile I have been busy sharpening up my various foci of identity online. For example, this blog has returned to its predominant themes of openness, free and open source software, and reflections on such software and the communities that grow and sustain it. Gone is the fun widget from LibraryThing displaying books that I have recently added to my catalog there (if you are reading this via an rss feed you may never have seen that). I have moved that over to my other blog, Transformative Explications, which focusses on books and writing. There is a link here in my blogroll. My thinking is that it is better to give these two passions a separate and distinct location on the web without trying to disguise that they are both a growing part of me.

My other blog is located on a domain I set up back in 2007: www.randymetcalfe.com. I hadn’t done much with that domain or with the web hosting package that lies behind it, but I am now actively developing it.

You will notice, if you visit it, that the blog is a WordPress installation. WordPress is just one of an array of software packages available via the Fantastico De Luxe installer that comes with my web hosting package. Since my skills do not lie in system administration, this turns out to be a great way for me to experiment with and commit to using some FOSS. I’m happy with the WordPress install that I have but it doesn’t prevent me from also living in the cloud over here at Blogger. Of course my needs are simple; more complex requirements might have necessitated a clear choice.

The other FOSS that I have been exploring of late is Drupal, which is also available to me via Fantastico. After a couple of test installs at different domains, I have committed to exploring Drupal more fully. To that end I have been patiently documenting my learning curve (more on that later) as well as looking for opportunities to engage with the Drupal community.

Drupal is not as simple to use as WordPress, clearly, but its capabilities are vast (limitless?) and to take full advantage of it my learning curve will need to go on for some time. I’ve made some initial moves on participating in the Drupal community – joining email lists, sitting in on IRC, even attending my local Drupal user group meeting this past week. I was also lucky enough to go to one day of the nearby Toronto DrupalCamp, where I saw Dries Buytaert, the founder of Drupal, give an inspiring talk. What have I learned so far, other than that I have a lot to learn? I’ve learned that the Drupal community is strong. It has a lot of small and mid-size web consultancy businesses actively participating within it. And there are a lot of people around with, it seems to me, a great deal of technical knowledge. Enough so that it will, I think, be a long time before I manage to find any way to contribute to this community other than by using the software and enthusing, where possible, about it.

If I have sharpened my use of my blogs in the past week, then I will have got somewhere. Still a lot more things to think about in this exploration of my PIO. But until then…

For a while now I’ve been hearing murmurs about a Mozilla Foundation effort entitled Drumbeat. I don’t fully grok what Drumbeat is or will be. It’s something about the open web, or keeping the web open, or telling people that the web is open or ought to be, and mostly it seems to be very open about what it is or isn’t to the point of openly inviting others to come along and help it be even more of what it is, i.e. open. So, clearly I haven’t got it yet. I’m not ready for the 3 floor elevator pitch. That’s one reason I want to head over to FSOSS 2010. Mark Surman, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation, is going to be there speaking about Drumbeat. Mark will clear up my confusion in a trice, I’m sure. He’s good at that sort of thing.

Not that I haven’t been exploring the Drumbeat site myself (you should too!). In fact, a new project has shown up there, Camelia, which might be worth a look-see. The project page has a very useful 73 second video from Ross Gardler, the project lead, making his own elevator pitch about Camelia. There is also a 12 minute video for those of you who would like to take the lift to the top. In a nutshell, Camelia is about educating about the open web and enabling individuals to get involved with the hope of minimizing duplication between open web projects and maximising collaboration between same.

Frankly, once I saw that Ross was involved that pretty much sold me. What does Ross know about the open web? What doesn’t he know. He lives it. Go ahead and Google him (because you would anyway).  Then go back and watch his videos explaining what he, and those who join him, hope to achieve with the Camelia project. And finally, once you are convinced, take the half minute or so more to register on the Drumbeat site and vote for the project (yes, it’s important – it affects the likelihood of accruing seed funding from the Mozilla foundation).

Or better yet, just go get involved.

Today I downloaded the latest version of Ubuntu: 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. I burned both a cd and a dvd (for good measure) of the .iso file. Then I lugged an aging desktop that is not currently using Ubuntu (yes, it uses the “other” operating system!) downstairs and set it up in the kitchen so that I could plug it directly in to my router. You really want a wired connection to the Internet when you go to install Ubuntu. In fact, the new install screens specifically check for this and then give you the possibility of downloading additional software during the installation.

The installation was clean and smooth. I had a slight hiccup initially in getting my PC to boot from the install disc, but once I realized that I was being dim (hey, 6 months between installs and I forget things) everything proceeded in due order. I continued reading a book whilst the computer did what it had to do.

A clean install, however, was not what I was worried about. I’ve done lots of clean installs of Ubuntu over the years. Rather I was concerned about my sadly proprietary usb wireless adapter (a D-Link DWA-130). That was an inexpensive adapter I purchased some time ago when this non-wireless-card desktop moved out of reach of my router. It worked fine in the “other” operating system. But I knew from testing an Ubuntu release on cd a while back that this adapter does not work out of the box with Ubuntu. I would need to sort that out if I was going to be able to use this machine with this wireless adapter up in my office. That, or I would have to go purchase another adapter, checking first this time that I was getting something that was more ecumenical with respect to operating systems. (But oh, I hate to waste money like that!)

First I confirmed that in fact my wireless adpater does not work out of the box with Ubuntu 10.10. Second I did what any good computer hobbyist would do – I turned to Google. A quick search using “ubuntu usb wireless adapter” brought me to Ubuntu’s Docs on Wireless Cards. An excellent start. I took the advice at the top of the page and fired up a terminal window and typed: lsusb. That confirmed two things for me: 1) Ubuntu was in fact seeing my wireless adapter, and 2) the chipset my adapter was using (essential later for downloading the correct driver).

I learned that in order to use this wireless adapter, the best route would be to download the correct driver from the manufacturer, then install Ndiswrapper and Ndisgtk (a helpful interface for those who prefer to visit the command line and not necessarily live there). Where did I get the information on how to do this? From the Ubuntu Docs on Ndiswrapper, of course.

It helps to follow the instructions carefully. Don’t rush things. You will need to revisit the command line at points. For example, I needed to add a line to blacklist.conf in modprobe and that was easily handled via vi. A short bit of testing revealed that my wireless adapter was now working correctly. And this post is evidence of same.

I am looking forward to exploring more of the Maverick Meerkat now that I have an Ubuntu desktop in my office again.

The bookend shouts of, “CAR!,” followed at a decent interval by, “GAME ON!,” are almost too typically Canadian to need much explanation. Readers of this blog may have noticed that I have been largely out of the FOSS discussion for about a year. Or, as you might say, a decent interval. I feel like it is time for me to get back in the mix and thereby announce same with the traditional Canadian shout of, “GAME ON!”

Getting back in the FOSS swing of things isn’t so hard, really. I have not in fact been away, just quiet. Fortunately my re-emergence coincides with a couple of useful events almost in my back yard: DrupalCamp Toronto 2010 and FSOSS 2010.

I’ve been to a couple of FSOSS (Free Software and Open Source Symposium) meetings in the past. They are usually very well organised with a great selection of workshops and keynotes that cover a wide spectrum of issues and projects in the FOSS world. This year’s FSOSS looks just as impressive.

DrupalCamp is something different for me. I’ve started playing with (i.e. learning) Drupal on a couple of my websites recently. I had heard lots of good things about Drupal for years of course but this is the first time that I’ve started using it for real. I’m on a bit of a learning curve there but so far it is making sense. When I spotted DrupalCamp being mentioned on my local LUG list (well, I didn’t say I’d become a monk or anything!) I thought it would be worth investigating. So I’m heading up or over or down to Toronto for one day of the two-day Drupal Camp (although that day does include a keynote by Dries Buytaert so it should be interesting!). Time to learn a bit more about the Drupal community and see if there might be a place for me there.

If you are attending either DrupalCamp Toronto or FSOSS, do say hi. (I’ll be the short, quiet guy at the back of the room.)

It’s good to be back.