Matthew Helmke (dot) Net Posts

We have a musician to interview in this edition of our Ubuntu Community Interviews. Unsurprisingly, tinivole is also a pretty good guy and a wonderful addition to our forum staff. I think you will enjoy this conversation.

1. Tell as much as you’re willing about your “real” life – name, age, gender, location, family, religion, profession, education, hobbies, etc.

My real name is Iain Buclaw. I was born in Surrey, 1989, and am currently living in the West Midlands, UK. I have a European bound family with heritage roots from Italy and Poland, to which I’ve picked up enough of the Polish language to survive if I were ever to visit the country. My strengths are in Studio Engineering/Production and IT Support/Analyst roles; I am yet to decide which one to take on as a full-time career. I have vendor IT qualifications in CompTIA A+, Network+; Microsoft Certified DST; and Linux LPIC1. In my spare time I am a hobbyist programmer of the C and Perl languages, and spend whenever I can thrashing out Jazz/Rock on guitars.

2. When and how did you become interested in computers? in Linux? in Ubuntu?

I was a Music Recordist before I was a Computer Enthusiast, ever since the age of 12 using Cool Edit Pro2, and later Adobe Audition to record, track, layer and mix my own songs. That was until one day I had a sudden epiphany which motivated myself to learn programming. Of course, this sort of change didn’t happen over night, but after hours of playing with, and enjoying a software I bought called QuantumFX; which in a nutshell is a 5th Generation Programming IDE for making custom audio VST effect plugins, ranging from simple delays, to complex amp simulators.

At 16, I joined a Music Technology and an A Level Computing course at my local college. The practical elements of Computing were great, despite the course language of choice, VB6. That with added theory work in networking, programming paradigms and operating systems led me to stumble upon debian.org for the first time in my life, although it was to take another year before I initially installed my first Debian system. In the meantime, however, the course eventually because monotonous, so I ended up dropping out later during the second year, but continued on to get a BTEC Diploma in Music Technology.

By the time I had switch completely 100% Debian, Ubuntu Hardy Alpha1 was released, which just so happened to be the first time Ubuntu worked completely out of the box on my desktop system. The rest is history.

3. When did you become involved in the forums (or the Ubuntu community)? What’s your role there?

Almost immediately as I had installed Hardy Alpha1. Initially, I had a few questions to ask here and there about the operating system, and in the time waiting for replies, idolised by reading other support threads, occasionally answering to some of them. Over time as the number of solved posts increased, so did my enthusiasm to help/teach people.

After about 5 months of answering support threads, and some bumps into forum conversation with vor (aka sdennie) later, I received a private message from Joeb inviting me to join the Beginners Team. Since joining, I have seen the team grow and evolve from around a dozen active members to what now must be 40-50 active members. I now give support on both IRC and Forums, and have gotten involved in the Beginners-Dev and IRC Focus Groups within the BT team. Also, I would have been a key player in the Stalkers FG too, if such a FG existed, which it doesn’t.

4. Are you an Ubuntu member? If so, how do you contribute? If not, do you plan on becoming one?

I’m not currently a member, but I suppose, like many, it is something that I would like to apply for in the interim future. I haven’t really gotten involved in any LoCo group yet due to geographic constraints, but it’s something that may begin to happen as I relocate to better suited areas of Britain.

5. What distros do you regularly use? What software? What’s your favourite application? Your least favourite?

I run Debian 5.0 and Ubuntu 9.04, both installed from a Net boot disk, both of which are running 2.6.29 kernels with patches for real-time computing. Something I’ve slowly been adding to is to make a small recording studio setup in Linux without the bloat that other Studio distributions seem to be included with.

My favourite programs are vim and perl, if I were to naturally follow in the path of sdennie. I also have a liking to my own adapted version of an old abandoned pseudo C interpreter. kvm is another one for the good books, especially when used as a machine to test fixes/solutions before posting them. And ardour is a another brilliant application that deserves merit too. I don’t generally have a least favourite.

6. What’s your fondest memory from the forums, or from Ubuntu overall? What’s your worst?

Every time sdennie kicks me from a channel would be my fondest moment, more-so now as I can kick him back. Compiledkernel is another fond memory too, I always enjoy it when he is around IRC talking to new users. I can’t think of any notable things that happened on the forums, although nowadays I find myself digging up more and more old threads I posted solutions in. Be that a good thing or bad thing.

The first week of being a moderator on the forums and all the anxiousness that came with it was perhaps one of the worst weeks. There is a lot to take in, and quite steep amount of adjusting to do. The first time I confused Edit and Quote was a notable experience to elevate that, although perhaps quite humorous now I look back on it. My time on the forums since has only gotten better as my confidence grows in making important decisions, I now have a deep respect for the staff, and understand their sometimes undervalued role.

7. What luck have you had introducing new computer users to Ubuntu?

Haven’t really introduced Ubuntu to any new users as of yet, although I’ve had plenty of conversations with people who are either aware of Ubuntu, own a CD, or have tried it out in a VM, but haven’t yet taken the leap onto trying it out on a real partition yet. Have even had an interview where the interviewer was an Ubuntu user, which was fun. Since joining the BT and Forum staff, I have always included my voluntary work on my CV, and interviewers always pick it out first. I feel it is important for them to understand just what it takes to be in such a role.

8. What would you like to see happen with Linux in the future? with Ubuntu?

Further adoption and growth. Perhaps not on the Desktop for the time being, but in every other nook and corner of the Computer world.

9. If there was one thing you could tell all new Ubuntu users, what would it be?

Although we have collaborative works such as Ubuntu nowadays, it is always important to consider your own learning ability before trying out a new operating system. The Study Skills Handbook by Stella Cottrell is one such book I’d recommend to people looking to optimise their own learning abilities, as it has, at the very least, played a vital part in my education.

I have used relational databases for years. I’ve used them to store mailing lists, email account data for postfix, blog and forum data, and more. They are convenient and powerful time savers. Most of what I have learned has been indirectly learned while studying something else; documentation for a computer programming language like PHP or Python, a book on website design for commerce, or documentation and code for an open source project like WordPress or Drupal. As a result, my knowledge is adequate for simple tasks and queries, but I’m nowhere near ready to be a database admin. What I know is incomplete, adequate for my actual needs, but with gaping holes in my knowledge.

Until this week, I was comfortable with this fact.

Since I read and enjoyed the other manga guides in this series that I have read, I picked up a copy of The Manga Guide to Databases. I wanted to see whether the book made the subject interesting and whether it taught the subject well.

The short answer is that I found the systematic and foundational introduction to database design clear, interesting, and enjoyable–so much so that I have ordered a few more books on database theory and design and SQL for further study (stay tuned, I may review them later). Contrast that with the indirect introductions I have previously encountered that made me want to ignore the topic, except for the aspects vital to my task(s) at hand.

The Manga Guide to Databases uses a somewhat silly, but pleasant story with well drawn artwork to ease the reader into a complicated subject that requires paying a bit of attention to for comprehension. It begins with the assumption that the reader knows nothing about the topic, so it would be perfect as a base level introductory text, especially for high school aged readers (or those of us who are a bit older, but who still enjoy a bit of whimsy).

We start with the question “What is a database?” and a great description of how and why they are useful. We move into a basic definition of relational databases with a very brief mention of other types of databases that exist. The fun continues with a chance to design a database around the model of entities and relationships.

Once the foundation is laid with a conceptual understanding of databases and their design, structured query language (SQL) is introduced. I was thrilled to discover this wasn’t product specific language, but rather standard ANSI, at least as far as I can tell (okay, I know a little more than I let on earlier, but I still consider myself a database/SQL novice). That is great, because it means that whatever is learned here should apply anywhere, whether using MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Access, Microsoft SQL Server, or whatever, so long as the product conforms to the standard. This certainly isn’t a complete SQL introductory text, but it is enough to get a person started understanding the basic concepts and how to operate a database.

Ultimately, the book was a success. I wouldn’t kid anyone into thinking that reading and understanding this book would make a person capable of real database administration, but it does give a clear and solid foundation for further study, and in my case has whet my appetite for going back to fill in some personal knowledge gaps that I have been content to let exist for a very long time.

There are many good books that discuss the basics of systems administration. This is not one of those books. This book is much deeper and more specific and fills a niche that I think needed to be filled.

If you are in charge of a group of servers, especially as your company’s setup becomes larger and more complex, knowing how to check for problems and intruders is vital. It is also something that can be difficult to learn because of the dearth of materials readily available.

Security Monitoring, by Chris Fry and Martin Nystrom, seeks to remedy that problem. The authors are experienced security analysts and speakers who refined their materials over many years of giving security related presentations at conferences. They know what they are talking about, and their manner of presenting the material is clear and logical. The book’s subtitle is “Proven Methods for Incident Detection on Enterprise Networks.” It fits.

When I first noticed the deep ties each of the authors have with Cisco, I was concerned that the book might focus solely on their products, but they discuss software and methods from many vendors, including free and open source options. I found their discussions honest, open, and balanced.

The book begins by answering what security monitoring is, why it would be useful and desirable, and discusses several of the challenges involved in doing it well. We then move to the implementation of policies for monitoring, including a good description of the many types of monitoring that can be done, their strengths and weaknesses.

Next, we are led to know our network. This is foundational, but something that many systems administrators and IT workers don’t do, either because of time constraints or they just don’t think about it. However, taking the time up front to explore and really know what is in your network and how it is set up gives you a great advantage later when you receive security notices from your monitoring software–it helps you sort important things out from noise far more quickly and easily. The time savings later make this step well worth the time it takes to perform it.

Later, the book helps us select targets for monitoring, choose good sources for event collection and keep them dependable, feed and tune our netword intrusion detection systems and logging, and far more.

Each chapter and topic are demonstrated through an example that persists throughout the book, a fictional company called Blanco Wireless. As the chapters progress, we analyze and create security monitoring for the company. That was a useful thing to include.

One of my favorite features of the book is the final chapter which gives multiple real life examples through case studies and anecdotes to help illustrate moments when implementing the advice in the book would have been incredibly helpful, but when it was not done prior to an incident. The authors are very honest and humble here and own up to their humanity. Like the rest of us, they don’t always do what they know should be done. Some of these are their stories of learning the hard way that you don’t save time by skipping steps.

I think this book belongs on the shelf of anyone who has any responsibility for the security of systems, whether that responsibility is ultimate or partial. There is a lot in here, and anyone working in the field is sure to benefit in some way from the information.

I so enjoyed the last book in this short series that I decided to pick up all of the currently published titles. I’ll review each of them as time goes on. This time around, I will discuss The Manga Guide to Statistics.

Ahh, statistics. The subject that so many of us need to understand, too few grasp, and even fewer seem to enjoy. What better way is there to test the quality of the book than for me to read about something I don’t particularly enjoy and have never been terribly good with?

The book is designed to give an elementary understanding of basic statistical concepts and methods in a creative and approachable manner. I’ll skip to the bottom line and say that I think it succeeds in doing so. The art is very well done, the story line is a bit better than in the Electricity book I reviewed previously, although it bogs down near the end, and the information is presented in a clear and logical manner.

The Manga Guide to Statistics begins by defining various data types and how to determine in which category the data you have belong. Then it digs deeper into understanding numerical (quantitative) data and categorical (qualitative) data. Later, you are guided through normalization, scoring, deviations, probability, relationships between variables, and testing hypotheses. All the standard foundational aspects of statistics are covered in enough depth to give a valid and useful introduction.

One thing I really liked was the appendix, which shows very clearly how to do all of the major calculations using Microsoft Excel, with xls spreadsheets available for download from the publisher’s website. While it would certainly be my preference to not have this topic tied to a specific program from one vendor, I did test out many of the spreadsheets and instructions using OpenOffice.org‘s Calc spreadsheet. Good news! With the exception of menu locations for functions being different and requiring a little bit of not-too-difficult searching, I was able to follow all of the directions I attempted from the appendix using OpenOffice.org Calc. That freed me from an expensive and unnecessary expenditure (or at least from having to find a place and way to use software I don’t want to use).

If you already know statistics pretty well, this book wouldn’t be useful to you. If you are looking for an easy to understand and quality introduction that includes a bit of frivolity, you will find this book both useful and enjoyable. I did.

People following this blog know that I have been doing a lot of research lately to brush up my web site creation and management skills. I’ve been reading about content management systems, JavaScript, systems administration topics and the like. With most of these are things I am well past the novice stage. My biggest weakness in the process is not technical, but design related.

I am not a graphic designer. I am not a web designer. I know I have a lot to learn. That is why I started looking for help. I’ve been reading sites like Smashing Magazine (where I acquired the free design I am currently using on this site) and SitePoint. At some point I ran across a blog by a designer named Elliot Jay Stocks and was floored by how attractive and unique his site is and was wowed by his portfolio.

Last month, I noted on SitePoint that Stocks had written a book called Sexy Web Design to be published immediately. I knew I wanted a copy.

Now that I have read the book, I can honestly say that I am glad to have done so. Perhaps a person with design experience, especially design for the web, might find much of the book basic, I learned a lot. While there is no doubt I have a long way to go, I feel like I have a better sense of where the path is and in what direction I wish to head.

The book is comprised of six easy to read chapters. There are a large number of interesting and beautiful illustrations to enable us to clearly see and understand the design concepts he discusses including interfaces, structure, navigation, and interaction.

This is not a book about code. There are no detailed instructions for making the design happen, although there are some hints and tips for people to keep in mind to make that step easier. This is a book about how to envision and build the look and feel of a site. It is not about the technology, it’s about the appearance and whether it draws you in and is effective in conveying the message and data you want your visitors to receive.

I found the discussions of the design process, planning, research, sketches, layout, and more to be incredibly useful and interesting. I would imagine that people with a design background would find them basic, but again, I’m a complete novice in this area. If you are like me, the book is certainly worth a look.

Codename has given us the latest installment in our Ubuntu Community Interviews series. He’s a young guy, polite, friendly, and helpful. He also provides us with an example of thankfulness and service, choosing to help others in the community after recognizing the help he received. Thanks, Mike!

1. Tell as much as you’re willing about your “real” life — name, age, gender, location, family, religion, profession, education, hobbies, etc.

Well to start things off my name is Mike, and I’m 18. I’ve always been kind of a computer guy, the family calls me “The Computer Whiz Kid”. I was around computers as a kid so I’ve always kind of liked them and hence the reason I’ve became very fluent on the Ubuntu Forums. I really don’t have a job, but I’m working on becoming a Network administrator soon, so I’m really excited, and I want to fulfill that goal.

2. When and how did you become interested in computers? in Linux? in Ubuntu?

I became interested in computers at a very young age, I’d probably say when I was 5. The first OS I ever used was probably Windows 3.1 and as a little kid I knew how to run simple commands and go to directories to launch my favorite games, but as time moved on I kept on using Windows until XP came out. The OS wasn’t working out for my needs, so I decided to seek an alternative in 2005 and this is where Linux comes in. I looked at a couple of distributions before looking at Ubuntu. My first distribution I used was Gentoo, I used Gentoo for a little bit and loved it, but I was hearing a lot about “Ubuntu” so I decided to give it a shot. The first thing I loved about it was the interface and the simplicity, so I obviously installed Ubuntu and I loved it, and became my primary OS of choice. At the time I couldn’t believe how easy it was to set everything up and it was an absolutley amazing feeling using an OS that worked almost perfectly for me and fitted my needs.

3. When did you become involved in the forums (or the Ubuntu community)? What’s your role there?

I actually didn’t become involved in the forums until May 2007 I think, I had some video card issues and some very talented people helped me out and since then I just thought I should return the favor that people did for me, which was help others in need. I think my role now at the Ubuntu Forums is network support and general support. When I help someone and that person says “Thanks Codename” there’s no better feeling, for me anyways, because I know now that the problem is obviously solved and they now enjoy Ubuntu without having that issue.

4. Are you an Ubuntu member? If so, how do you contribute? If not, do you plan on becoming one?

Sadly I’m not an Ubuntu member, I do plan on becoming one soon.

5. What distros do you regularly use? What software? What’s your favorite application? Your least favorite?

The distributions I regularly use are probably Sabayon and Ubuntu. I think those two distributions of Linux are really innovative, both have great features and of course very simple. I honestly use a lot of software, but if I had to pick some favorites I’d probably say Pidgin, VLC and Eclipse. I think those programs work flawlessly. Honestly I don’t have a least favorite application. The applications I use I love.

6. What’s your fondest memory from the forums, or from Ubuntu overall? What’s your worst?

My fondest memories of the forums would probably have to be helping people, and receiving satisfaction of helping others that need the help, and when when I see great collaboration going on in the forums, there’s nothing like it. My fondest memory of Ubuntu actually is probably when I got my wireless and video card working! Even though that’s not much, that’s really the only problems I’ve had with Ubuntu, and when I got two things to work, everything worked perfectly. My worst memory with Ubuntu is getting frustrated at the issues I’m having, but if there’s anything I’ve learned from using Linux is patience is the key, and once you have patience you can probably fix any issue you have.

7. What luck have you had introducing new computer users to Ubuntu?

I’ve actually had great luck. I now have at least 3-4 people that I personally know switch to Ubuntu because I’ve stated the advantages of Ubuntu and why they might like the OS. I tell them remember “Linux is not Windows” and if you have any trouble, let me know and usually I don’t hear back from them because everything just works for them, which is an awesome feeling.

8. What would you like to see happen with Linux in the future? with Ubuntu?

I’d definitely like to see Linux in general expand on to the desktop market, which we have kind of seen today. I mean Dell offers computers pre-installed with Ubuntu which is great. I also love the fact that Asus has the option you can buy a Eee PC with Linux pre-installed, I think that’s a step forward. I wish for Ubuntu and Linux in general the best.

9. If there was one thing you could tell all new Ubuntu users, what would it be?

Remember new users, research the forums and have patience, and believe me it will pay off sooner or later. The forums are also a great place to learn and expand your Linux knowledge, and don’t be afraid to ask questions! If you have researched your question and nothing comes up, then by all means please ask the quetsion and I’m sure one of the talented people on the forums can help you! Just hang in there.

I picked this book up for fun. I already know a lot about electricity. I have been known to read electron tube spec sheets and circuit designs for fun and amusement. I’ve been known to scrounge around at ham radio festivals and used book stores looking for old design manuals or tech books. You may remember my blog entry about one of my projects where I built a tube-powered guitar amplifier. So, I didn’t buy this book because I needed/wanted to learn the material. I already know it.

I picked up The Manga Guide to Electricity because it looked like a fun way to introduce the topic to a new generation. Guess what? I think it is. The book was originally drawn and written in Japan a few years ago and was only recently translated into English. The story line is okay, but it won’t rank up there with Watchmen and the like. This isn’t a graphic novel. However, it is interesting enough to make a subject that can sometimes be difficult to absorb for new learners more accessible.

The book begins with the assumption of no real background in electricity or electronics. It then builds up to a pretty solid foundation in basic theory and gives a clear understanding of how electricity works and can be created, influenced, and corralled by an engineer or circuit designer to do specific tasks. The book doesn’t teach actual circuit design, but it does give a very clear introduction to very important concepts and components including voltage, potential, current, resistance, Ohm’s Law, capacitance, batteries, magnetism, diodes, rectification, motors, both alternating and direct current, and even the main types of electricity generation in use.

Each chapter starts with a part of a graphic tale that introduces specific concepts for that chapter in a clear and fun manner. Then, to make sure the conceptual understanding can be made solid, each chapter has an additional and more traditional text and diagram section with a more detailed explanation of each concept.

If you know anyone, especially someone who enjoys manga, whether a teenager or a kid at heart, or just someone who appreciates art with their text, who also is interested in a solid and interesting basic introduction to electricity, this book is well worth the read. I recommend it highly and am going to take a closer look at the entire series of manga guides that is still growing.

Anyone who has been paying attention knows that I have been doing a ton of reading lately on Drupal 6. I admit it, I have a tendency to get interested in something and then consume every bit of information about it that I can find. I recently read a book on pure JavaScript because I noticed that Drupal version 6 ships with a Drupal JavaScript library (drupal.js) as well as a fairly recent and powerful library that is gaining followers rapidly called jQuery.

I have been waiting for this book to come out for months, since I first heard that it was being written. Matt Butcher and Packt Publishing released Drupal 6 JavaScript and jQuery last month. Now that I have had a chance to read it, I must say that it does not fail to please.

What I wanted to learn was why Drupal chose to include JavaScript in the Drupal core, what it is used to accomplish and how. I am very familiar with HTML and CSS, and am reasonably adept at reading and modifying PHP when necessary, so all the other main parts of Drupal are built using tools I know and understand. I wanted to find out how and why I would want to take advantage of the stated and implied benefits of including the free and open source jQuery library in sites I administer and design using Drupal.

The books starts off with a very quick introduction to Drupal. It is obvious that the intended audience is not newcomers, and that this is not a basic introduction level text. It is assumed that anyone reading this is familiar with web site creation and administration, web hosting basics, and knows how to install a Drupal site that uses the default theme. You get a quick tour of the main core features of Drupal and some nice web browser tools for developers. Then we get to the meat of the book.

Starting in chapter two we learn how to work with JavaScript in Drupal by writing a short js program and discovering how to include it in a node by incorporating a link to the script in a theme. This is a clear and great beginning.

Chapter three is dedicated completely to the jQuery library, what it is capable of doing, and how to use it the Drupal way instead of reinventing the wheel. The basic point here is that it is a lot easier to use a library to perform complex tasks than it is to write a complete JavaScript function, which would then need to be adapted for different browsers, and it is easy to call those library functions within Drupal because the Drupal developers have chosen to create ways to do so that are even easier than calling those library functions would be in a standard flat HTML/CSS page or some other content management systems. There are useful examples throughout such as how to make a set of announcements display one at a time at the top of your page, fading in and out, so that you can give several tidbits of information to your site guests without requiring all of the space on your page. Cool stuff.

The book contains useful information on how to use the drupal.js library, written by the Drupal developer community, to do many tasks, such as the sample collapsing blocks project that lets guests choose whether to allow information to be displayed or to shrink boxes so that there is more space on a page. We learn how to use js to create beautiful effects and help with site theming, how it can be used to translate your site into other language for guests, and even how to build your own modules.

I have only scratched the surface of the book. As I admitted in my post on the JavaScript book, I am still learning the language. By intent, jQuery is a huge time saver and makes incorporating client side functions into your site easier than using the language alone, and the way the Drupal community has chosen to incorporate that library and write their own in addition makes it still easier. I am glad I picked up the book. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go play.

Over the last couple of weeks we have seen what we all knew was coming: lots of newspapers making the final decision to cease publication. There are lots of reasons for this, including things like content that doesn’t appeal to readers, the convenience of the internet, investigative journalism that has been made subservient of the desires of marketing and sales departments, and more.

My personal feeling is that the most important reason is simply that for the most part words printed on cheap paper with cheap ink is an archaic method of getting information to the masses. It is slow, it is expensive, and frankly, it’s messy and wasteful.

I think newspapers and even the television and magazine industries need to look at themselves as current day analogs to Vaudeville shows. Once a new method for getting their content to the masses became popular, the producers had to either adapt, retire, or go bankrupt. Many of the big names in Vaudeville became big names in the early days of cinema, radio, and television. That can still happen for today’s news media, but only once they stop fighting the change and learn to adapt themselves to the times.

I contributed seven articles and cowrote another with Ryan Troy for the Linux Starter Kit edition of Linux Identity. The issue should be on newsstands now.