The life and times of Darrin Ritter

real mobile computing

2010-05-08T00:14:00.000-07:00

well I think the era of real mobile computing has really come. I am writing this on my N97. I have just read someone elses blog, posted a comment on it, and now I am writing this. My callender and address book are updated to my phone over the 3G network and I can access all sorts of info via the web. Information is truly ubiquitous. I am truly amazed!!!!!

Deliberate Living

2010-04-01T04:35:00.000-07:00

Well there are a few things that have happened in the last few weeks, one of them being several nights with Dr Peter Daniels at a conference at World Harvest. One thing rediscovered for me was the phrase "a sense of Destiny". Sometimes we need to rediscover things that get lost in the whirl wind of life.
If we are not careful we can fall into a "subsistent lifestyle", Living from day to day and waiting for a set of predetermined parameters to to occur before we can start "living life". In doing so we give up our control and decision making to some external source. Something that makes us truly human is our ability to make decisions about how we live our lives. A consequences of living subsistently is that we can often start to feel trapped and caged in, and then frustration sets in.
One of the gifts that God has given us is the "freedom of choice". I am also convinced that He has an ultimate plan for our lives and that we have the freedom to choose whether to follow this plan or not.
A phrase that I have been contemplating is "deliberate living", I think we need to consider carefully how we are going to live and make deliberate choices rather than float along with out purpose, controlled by external factors. I think that we have to seek after that ultimate plan and start to live deliberately making good choices that will lead us along that path.
Not all of us are called to become multimillionaires like Peter Daniels, but we can all have a significant impact upon the people around us by deliberately choosing to have a positive influence in every situation that we are involved in. Let us seek out Gods purpose for us all individually and rediscover what it is like to live with "A Sense of Destiny".

thanks Darrin

2010-03-02T05:22:00.000-08:00

Wow talk about changes in your life, mine is going to never be the same, I am experiencing a liberty that I haven't had for a long time. I have a lightness and a joy that I can't explained from an earthly perspective.

CS Lewis said "If you discover a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, then perhaps you should ponder that you were created for another world."

That is exactly what I am experiencing, the reality of what Jesus did for me on the cross, and the recent pruning of what was unfruitful in my life has freed me to be what I should be, a free child of His. And so I am living in supernatural joy and loving it

watch this space

2010-01-14T02:59:00.000-08:00

Well 2009 was quite a year, full of its ups and downs. Most years I have a "lets get refreshed and get on with what we are doing last year" attitude, but this year everything is up in the air.

I'm currently getting refreshed on my annual holiday, all sorts of options are open to me, new study options, new job options and new social group options.

I am fully convinced that for me 2010 will be a completely new year and I don't know what it will bring, however I know that my Heavenly Father is all loving and all powerful and he has made a promise to me;

NASB: Jeremiah Chapter 29
11. 'For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.

and I'm claiming that promise and all I can say is "watch this space"

Jimmy the Greyhound

2009-10-30T21:37:00.000-07:00

Jimmy came into our house a little over a week ago as a foster dog. When we first met him he was full of beans and very unsettled but it soon showed that he was just a bit upset about being out of his familiar surroundings of his previous home.

What we soon discovered after a few days was the he was a big hearted dog who would do anything to make his people happy.

We had a lot of walks in the 8 days he was with us, and he was just starting to walk loosely and relaxed on the lead. He was a lot of fun and enjoyed running around with the toy bunny. He also started to enjoy a hug and was starting to embrace the inner couch potato that we know is on the inside of every greyhound and was getting the hang of this strange up bed that he was given to sleep on. He loved children and socialized well with other little dogs.

I have no doubt that he would have passed his green collar test with flying colours, he had all the attributes of a greyt pet and companion dog.

Unfortunately there were some complications while at the vet and they weren't able to save him. Some things are tragedies, this is one of them.

Jimmy you were a greyt dog, even though you were with us for only 8 days you bought something into our lives and made an impression upon us, we will always remember you.

Tomboy Notes

2009-10-03T04:45:00.000-07:00

What can I say, I love free software!!!
For me a while back "Free Software" used to mean the programs I got a crack for so I didn't have to pay for them. Now it means the programs that I can use, swap, redistribute and modify, free as in freedom to do with it as I choose.

One of the most useful programs that I use is called Tomboy notes, I have been using it for a while and it usually comes installed with Ubuntu.

You know those little tid bits of info that you need to keep, and you can't find your pen so you need to type it somewhere? Or it doesn't fit into any category so you cant file it any were on your computer? Well thats Tomboy notes is for. Whats more is that it has a built in search, so if you can't remember exactly where you put your info its still easy to find. Another feature that I like is that you can link notes together by inserting the title of one note into another.

What is even more awesome is that I noticed that Tomboy is not only available on Linux but they do Mac and Windows versions as well, so go ahead and download it and check it out and see if you like it if you do, let me know what you think.

Download here

I think I have made it easier to leave a comment :)

(Images are unashamedly copied directly of of the tomboy notes site I believe they are under a creative commons license)

this week

2009-10-01T20:59:00.000-07:00

OK so its been an interesting week, I wasn't fortunate to get an invite to google wave, but I know that some folk are busy testing it for me for when it is ready for release to the public.

I'm getting tired of Facebook, it is really limited in a proprietary kind of way, what you seem to get is what they want to throw at you, I still use it to keep in touch with family and friends, but I have disabled all the game notifications, they were starting to annoy me. I am instead going to blog here which is what I want to do and maybe link to it.

There are lots of tools here to do some good blogging so I'll try them out and see if I like them.

I have been happy with Google Picasa it seems to do a great job of organizing my photos without rearranging my file structure I think I will stick with it for now, I can't see myself getting stuck with a proprietary format so it should do the job for a while, at least until a mature GPL program come out.

I have been reading the blogoshere regarding the up and coming Windows 7 release, there have been a lot of positives about Windows 7 however the fact remains, it is just an Operating System, with it you still lack the freedoms that you have with Linux/FreeBSD to do with you computer as you wish, so it remains something that I'm not really interested in but feel free to use it yourself.

I'm pretty happy with how Ubuntu 9.10 is going, its hard to believe that it is still beta software. What is really cool is how much the bluetooth stuff has improved, especially the audio, I think they have finally got that properly sorted I need to get testing some audio editing software I guess to really put it though it paces.

Well thats it for now I guess, have a good week an I hope to blog again soon. If you read this please do me a favor and at least put a smilee face in the comments, I'd like to know you are reading my blog.

Cheers Darrin

New things

2009-09-27T17:49:00.000-07:00

Life has been quiet good lately, I have been spending more time with my Lovely Lady and the kids are doing just great.

I have been spending a lot of time riding my bike for fitness, its been fun but I havent had a lot of time for Mario Kart :)

I have been wanting to do more with my photography, recently I have been using F-Spot on Linux but there seem to be a bit of a !fail with it, such is the case with pre 1.0 software, so I have been trying out Google's picasa. Google didn't release version 3.5 for Linux but thankfully OMG!UBUNTU have come up with a work around. There are a few improvements over 3.0 like face recognition and geo-tagging. It was quiet good going through the collection and finding all the faces so I could tag them and I might stick with using it.

I'm looking forward to Google Wave, it is only a few days away, I'm expecting bugs with it. I'm using a stack of Google apps so it should integrate well with what I am using.

Ubuntu Karmic Koala is running very sweetly on my netbook, I cant believe how bug free it is, the big bonus is the inclusion of Bluetooth tools that allow my Bluetooth headset to sync and connect, also Pulse Audio is working properly and all my audio apps sync with it without issue, this sort of smoothness is what Linux has needed for a long time. Karmic certainly doesn't feel like pre release software.

Anyway I'm off to live some life, I might take some photos :)

New Laptop

2009-06-09T03:08:00.000-07:00

I Had a good experience purchasing my first full size laptop. What I was looking for was a relatively simple purchase option that was good quality and one where I didn't have to pay for a Windows license that I would never use. What I ended up with was somewhat of a pleasant surprise.

The version of Ubuntu that was used on the laptop is the LTS (Long Term Support) version and it is understandable that Pioneer used it for their computers, I was after the latest release and it was logical that I would upgrade immediately. Why wouldn't I its Free :)

The links are as follows:

Pioneer Computers

64 bit Flash

With 64 bit Flash I used Solution 4

As a note of correction Pioneer have been around for about 13 years and are quiet and established brand.

Again to you guys, thank you for the Ubuntu pre-install option.

Isn't it time to separate the bundles?

2009-06-03T17:12:00.000-07:00

Something that people might not know, is that when you buy your computer it is bundle combination of hardware; box, monitor, keyboard and mouse, and software; Microsoft Windows(TM), Office(TM), Games etc.

This bundling gives the perception that the software component comes free with the computer when in reality it is provided under an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) agreement. This is an agreement where the supplier gets a significant discount on Microsoft(TM) software under certain conditions. Unfortunately one of those conditions is that they offer Microsoft software on the 'majority' of their computers.

According to the following link: Microsoft OEM, it is as I suspected, that Microsoft uses its strong position in the market to further bolster its market position. It is also a well known fact that Microsoft was charged for criminally abusing its position as a Monopoly.

Imagine going into the Burger King(TM) and saying "Can I have a Whopper(TM) with cheese?" and being told "Sorry we don't do burgers on their own, you need to take the fries and the drink and that will be $7.95." That doesn't happen because the prices are itemized and you know that you burger should cost $4.50, the fries $1.50 and the drink $2.50 (yes you get a better deal with the bundle but that is not the point). However this is the scenario that your faced with when you go to buy your computer, you get offered the bundle and no other options.

There are a variety of Software alternatives available out there and without much thinking I can name at least three, FreeBSD(TM), Open Solaris(TM), and Linux(TM), all of them install and run on your computer without much effort. Most come with a stack of free software that will allow you, the average computer user, to do everything that you need to do with your computer. Otherwise you might just be happy with your copy of Windows XP Professional that you paid for and don't want to upgrade to the next version of Windows yet.

Isn't it time for the ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) to regulate computer retailers so that they include the individual prices in their bundles and allow for us the consumer, to reject any component of that bundle, including the software? After all it isn't acceptable with the burger, why should it be acceptable with the computer?

Microsoft Office fail

2009-06-02T17:45:00.000-07:00

It was promised that with the release of Microsoft Office 2007 service pack 2, there would support for the 'Open Standard' ODF formats. and what have they delivered?

The support that was released was patchy and buggy, I didn't read much but it appears that the spreadsheet import didn't include formulas just numbers from the cells.

I have a friend that is studying at University, her lecturers have all switched over to the latest MS Office and send their documents in the .docx format (Microsoft's new OOXML format). My friend is unable to open her documents in her spare time at work as their computers have an old version of MS Office that isn't compatible with the new format. She is just grateful that when she gets home she can use the latest version of OpenOffice.org, which she downloaded for free of the internet, to open her Uni work.

I'm looking forward to a 'new day', when interoperability is a goal that every company aims for. While I don't trust any monopoly, I'd rather have one that adheres to and promotes open standards than one that doesn't.

Google Wave

2009-06-02T17:25:00.000-07:00

Wow I just finished watching the 'google' wave demo, I know that this is a demo and not released yet but this seems like it has real potential in the real world. I can hear Steve Ballmer throwing chairs in his office at Microsoft again. He's quoted as saying "I'm going to #$&!~& kill Google." when one of his key mangers left, I got a feeling that Google is going to kill him, maybe by heart attack, one can really never know.

For those of you who are interested the google wave demo is located at http://wave.google.com/

Its a long demo so sit back and enjoy.

Looking at creating 3D Stereoscopic photos

2009-06-01T19:43:00.000-07:00

When I was a child I had one of those 3D photo viewers, I was totally fascinated with it. My enthusiasm hasn't really faded there and I have always wanted to do something like that. I recently purchased a couple of identical sony cameras for a second hand store. I am in the process of setting them up to take stereo photos. I have tried some experimental photos on some still life objects ant the results are promising, I would like to take some 'real life' action type photos.