I discovered audio books this past year, and have enjoyed listening to audio books from Audible while commuting to and from work.  This gave me an idea!

I would like to produce a podcast of original short stories.

Here’s the catch: I have always been a facilitator.  I have the technical skills to produce the show, but I accept the fact that I don’t have the prolific creativity to produce enough content on my own.

Have you written any short stories?  Would you like to publish them online as an audio book?  Please let me know!!

I will be setting up a “studio” to produce the recordings.  Authors would always be welcome to read their own stories for the podcast, or I can voice the recordings myself in the studio.

Flash drives are shipped pre-formatted using the FAT32 file system because FAT32 tends to be a universally supported format.  I tried to reformat the drive to the new exFAT filesystem (a new Windows file system optimized for flash drives).  The format failed.

As I tried to troubleshoot the issue, I realized that ReadyBoost wasn’t working right.  When restarting the computer, the system would hang on “logging out” until I ejected the card.  The card was quite unstable.  The file system kept becoming corrupt, requiring multiple attemps to reformat it.

I happened to notice some unknown devices in the device manager that hadn’t been there before.  A little while later, I inserted the card into the other card reader slot.  More unknown devices showed up, and the system told me that the hardware didn’t install properly again.   I realized I was on to something!

The card reader hardware wasn’t working properly because Windows 7 didn’t have the right driver included.  A little bit of diging and I came up with another idea.  Most computer manufacturers try to reduce costs whenever possible.  Just like car manufacurers, they reuse parts across different models when they can.

I couldn’t find a Vista/7 driver for the Acer Aspire One netbook that I have, but I was able to find a Vista driver for another acer model that I guessed was probably using the same card reader hardware.  My guess was right!

I found the driver that I needed for the built in Jmicron card reader on this page.

If you have an Acer Aspire One laptop and your card reader slots aren’t working right, grab that driver.  It should fix the problem, and allow you to use ReadyBoost too!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht96HJ01SE4

Updates are released regularly for Kubuntu.  At the time I write this, there are no updates immediately available after installation, but as a little bit of time passes from the release date, it is very likely that as soon as the installation is finished, you will probably be prompted to apply updates.  Go ahead and allow the system to download and install all available updates before proceeding.

After finishing the installation, there are a number of software packages that I install to prepare my system for normal everyday use.  I prefer to use the apt-get command from the command line to install packages.  I find it to be much easier than trying to use the GUI based package manager.  The beauty of the package management system, called “apt”, in Kubuntu (and any of the ‘buntu’s for that mater) is that it handles dependencies for you.  Each package contains information for the system that tells it what other packages (if any) need to also be installed in order for it to function.  The system checks, and will download and install the appropriate packages if necessary.  Linux has come a long way.  This entire process was totally manual when I started using Slackware Linux in 1997.  The general term for it: “dependency hell”.  If you’re just getting into Linux now, be very thankful for apt.

Software packages are stored in repositories.  These repositories are hosted on the servers that apt connects to to download software.   There is a file called “sources.list” that apt uses to keep track of what repositories are available for it to download packages from.  There are a few repositories that I like to add right off the bat.  They will be needed to install the various packages that I will list later.  I usually edit sources.list directly, but for this post, I’ll provide instructions for using the graphical interface.

Click the K menu (similar to the start button in Windows), and select “system settings” from the favorites group.  Choose the option to “add or remove software”.  Choose “settings” and then “edit software sources”.  In the 3rd Party tab, check mark the check box for “http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu jaunty partner” to enable the partner repository.

We also need to add the Medibuntu repository.  It contains lots of goodies!  Click “Add” and paste the following line into the box:

deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ jaunty free non-free

Click OK and allow the system to update its package lists.  Go ahead and close the software sources dialog box and select the “software management” item.

You can type the names of packages into the search box to easily find packages to install.  The first package that we want to install is the medibuntu-keyring.  Installing this keyring will allow your system to trust packages from the Medibuntu repository.  Type “medibuntu-keyring” into the search field and press enter.  The system should find the package and show it in the box below the search field.  Click the plus sign at the right side of the package information box and then click the apply button at the bottom right hand corner of the window.  Although my system did not prompt me, i want to mention that you may be asked to accept this package even though it cannot be authenticated. This is normal, and exactly the reason that we need to install the keyring!

You can install multiple packages with the GUI installer by searching for each one, clicking the plus sign, and then continuing to search for more packages.  Pressing the apply button will install all of the newly selected packages.

I prefer to use the command line to install packages.  For me, it is faster than trying to navigate through the GUI.  I can understand how opening a terminal window and typing seemingly cryptic comands at the command prompt can seem a little daunting for computer users who have never used anything but a graphical user interface.  It really isn’t too bad though.

Click the K menu, and select the Applications group.  In the applications group, select the system menu item, and then scroll down to the icon for the terminal.  To add the terminal to your favorites group, right click on it and choose to add it to your favorites.

When you launch the terminal, you’ll be presented with a black box where you can type your commands.  A good first package to install is the Mozilla Firefox web browser.  Type or paste the following command at the command prompt and press enter:

sudo apt-get install firefox

To a first timer, that probably doesn’t make much sense, but it really is pretty simple.  The first part of the command, “sudo” tells the system to run the command (in this case apt-get) as the administrator user.  Installing new programs requires administrator privelages.

The next part is the actual command that you’re executing: apt-get.  The apt-get command tells the Apt package management system to get a package.  Pretty easy to remember.  Apt-get has a few options though, and needs to know what we want it to do.  Here, we have told it to install a package, and then specified which package we want installed.

The system will check the repositories for lists of packages, and find the one with the matching name, firefox.  The first time you use sudo in a terminal session, you will be prompted for your password.  Enter your password.  Next, apt will report the additional disk space required to install the requested package.  Type the letter “y” for yes, and press enter.  Apt will now download and install firefox.  When it is done, you can find firefox in the Internet menu in the Applications group.

There are many other packages that I install.  The most notible are:

• xchat – My IRC client of choise
• Adobe Flash-Plugin for Firefox
• Skype
• VLC – A great media player that will play almost anything
• K Screensavers
• Adobe Acrobat Reader
• GIMP (A graphics editing program)
• A core set of TrueType fonts found in Microsoft Windows
• Various multimedia codecs for video and audio files

One of the nice things about apt-get is that you can instruct it to get more than one package at a time in a single command.  When installing lots of packages, it’s much easier to use the command line instead of searching for each individual package using the graphical interface.

To make it easy on you, I have included the command here so that it simply needs to be copied and pasted into your command prompt.

sudo apt-get install xchat firefox adobe-flashplugin libk3b3-extracodecs libtunepimp5-mp3 libxine1-ffmpeg libdvdcss2 msttcorefonts sun-java6-fonts sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin unrar w32codecs gimp skype vlc mozilla-plugin-vlc acroread

There you have it!  Copy and paste that line into your fresh Kubuntu 9.04 install and let it Apt work its magic!  This command will not work for the 64-bit version of Kubuntu because some of the package names are different or do not exist.

The installation went very smoothly.  I jotted down some notes as I went so that I could post a quick install guide.

If you want to install Kubuntu, you will need to create an installer CD.  The CD is distributed as a .iso image.  A CD image is a bit for bit representation of the CD, ready to be burned to a disk, which makes it very easy to create the bootable install CD.  Download the ISO image from HERE.  I used the standard 32 bit version, not the 64 bit version.

To properly burn the ISO image to a disk you will need a CD burning tool that supports burning images.  Don’t simply burn the file to a CD, it won’t work.  If you don’t already have a tool to do this, you can grab ISO Recorder HERE.  ISO Recorder is a small download that adds the ability to right-click a CD Image file and burn it directly to a CD.

Once you have downloaded the .ISO file and burned it to a CD, you should have a bootable Live CD to test out Kubuntu!  Simply put the CD in the drive and reboot your PC!  If the PC does not boot from the CD, you may need to modify your boot order in your systems BIOS, but that is outside of the scope of this post.

As soon as you boot from the CD, you will be prompted to select your preferred language.  I chose English.  After you choose the language, you will be prompted to choose what you want to do.  I recommend selecting the option to try Kubuntu without making any changes to your computer.  This option will let you make sure that your hardware is detected properly before you commit to actually installing the operating system on your hard drive.

When the system boots up to the desktop, you will see an icon to install Kubuntu.  Again, I suggest you play with the live CD for a little while to make sure you want to proceed with the installation.  When the system is running from the live CD, performance will be very sluggish.  This is because CD drives are significatly slower than hard drives.  It is not an indicitave of your systems post install performance.

To begin the installation, click “Install”, and follow the prompts.  The first few are very straightforward:

• Select your language, and click forward
• Set your time zone, and click forward
• Select your keyboard layout (in the US, take the default)  and click forward

The next step is to prepare the space on your hard drive where Kubuntu will be installed.  If you are running windows, and your entire hard drive is partitioned as one single large drive (C:), then things will be easy.  Select the default option to install the Kubuntu side by side with your windows installation, choosing the OS that you want at boot.  Follow the prompts, selecting the defaults for a guided install.

On my system, I already had a dual boot configuration between Windows 7 Beta, and Kubntu 8.04.  I simply wanted to format the existing linux partition.  I selected the option to manually specify my configuration.  On the next screen, I selected my existing linux partition, and clicked the “format” checkbox.  I was then presented with a few more options.  I selected my filesystem type (EXT4), I checked the format checkbox again, and entered a / in the “mout as” box, in order to make the system mount the partition as the root of the filesystem.

The next screen will prompt for your name, username, desired password, computer name, and login preference.  Fill in these fields and click forward.

Review your settings and click “Install”.  Now would be a good time to grab a beverage of your choosing and maybe a sandwich, while you’re up.  The installer will take some time to format the drive, copy all of the files, and configure your new operating system.

When the system is done, click “Restart Now”.  Leave the CD in the drive until you are prompted to remove it and press enter.

When the system reboots, select the option  in the Grub menu for Kubuntu and press enter.  The system should now boot into your shiny new operating system!

Three of the four local news producing stations in Central Ohio are joining forces to make more efficient use of their resources in our troubled economy.  It seems you can blame anything on our troubled economy and everybody just nods their heads understandingly.  It must be true, right?

Not in this case.  The situation that the local TV stations are facing right now is not due to the economy, but rather a broken and outdated business model.

In 2007, I participated in a focus group that was organized by WBNS-10TV.  The focus group consisted of a group of twenty-somethings.  WBNS was trying to figure out what they could do to help improve the utterly dismal ratings in the under 30 demographic.

It was at that focus group that I made a prediction.  I predicted that within 10 years (by 2017), we will see all but one of the broadcast TV towers in Central Ohio go dark.

I know.  It’s a rather grave prediction, but the truth of the matter is, we are witnessing a drastic shift in content delivery that is being propelled by two major forces.

The first, and probably most significant driving force behind the shift is that we, as consumers of media, are no longer willing to settle for “push” technology.  Broadcast TV is a push technology.  It is one way.  The programming is static.

As consumers, we are very quickly becoming accustomed to the ability to pull up the media that we want, when we want it.  Web sites like YouTube or Hulu are usually mentioned as examples of ways that users are transitioning to on-line sources of media.  Of course, the real threat to broadcast TV isn’t computer users watching internet video on their computers, but rather  TV viewers watching internet video on their TV sets.

Tivo began a revolution.  They enabled viewers to use a set top box to free themselves from the restrictions of the broadcast schedule.  I have heard friends describe their DVR’s as “life changing”.  I would have to agree.

Now, a new generation of set top boxes are set to continue the revolution, and probably accelerate the rate of change.  The DVR eliminated time constraints.  The next logical step is to eliminate the source limitations.  Products like AppleTV, Roku, and Vudu are only a few examples of products that allow users to pull content from the internet and watch it on their TV.

“Pull” is a very important word.  The drastic shift in content delivery that we are witnessing is the transition from a push model to a pull model.  As this transition progresses, it will become impossible for the traditional push broadcast model to survive as a business.  I’m not saying that local news outlets won’t survive.  They will need to reinvent themselves with a focus on internet publishing.

This brings me to the second driving force behind the shift:  content.  More specifically, content that is independently produced and published.  The barriers to entry no longer exist as they did just five to ten years ago.  The tools to produce and publish content are readily available at a cost that is trivial.  The success of internet video sites has proven that viewers are less concerned with picture quality and production value than they are with truly engaging content that they can connect with.

The shift to a pull model will also usher in a shift from broadcasting to narrowcasting, something that was not feasible until recently.  Independent content can be extremely focused, and easily cater to niche markets.  An independent producer will never be able to expect to see the type of advertising revenue that a big budget network show can command, but it isn’t necessary because of the difference in production overhead and delivery costs.

Advertisers are already taking notice of narrowcasted content.  The producer of show can charge a higher cost per thousand viewers (CPM) because the advertiser knows that the ad is being targeted at exactly the audience that they want to reach.  Even at a higher CPM, the advertiser can spend less money overall and expect to see a higher rate of response than they would see with a traditional broadcast ad.  Simply put, it is a more efficient advertising model.

I see the consolodation of local TV news operations as the first step towards paring down to one local TV station.  Who knows, maybe my prediction was too conservative.  We could see it happen well before 2017.

I installed Windows 7 on two PC’s that already had Linux installed.  On my laptop, I simply wiped out the XP install.  On my desktop at work, I used a gParted Live CD to move and resize my partitions to make room for Windows 7, since I wanted to keep my XP install intact.

After installing Windows 7, I was left with the Windows 7 boot loader that completely ignored the existence of Linux on my computers.  The laptop simply booted directly into Windows 7, and the desktop only allowed me to select between Windows 7 and Windows XP.

Fixing GRUB was a pretty easy task.  To do so, I grabed my Linux install CD (Mine happened to be Kubuntu 8.04).  I booted into the live CD desktop.  I opened up a terminal window and at the comand prompt, I typed:

sudo grub

The “sudo” part is important.  If you don’t run grub with root privelages, it will tell you that the selected disk doesn’t exist.

At the grub prompt, type:

root (

After you type the ( key, press the tab key.  Most likely, it will populate with hd0 (unless you have more than one physical hard drive in your computer).  If there is more than one hard drive in your computer, you will be presented with a list of available options.  You should see on the screen:

root (hd0,

Press the tab key again.  You will be presented with a list of partitions on the drive.  You will want to select the one with your linux installation on it.  For me, I completed the line:

root (hd0,2)

Press enter and you’ll be returned to the grub prompt.  If you want to reinstall GRUB onto the MBR (where most people put it), the next comand is:

setup (hd0)

Once GRUB is reinstalled to your MBR, you can type “quit” at the GRUB prompt.  Restart your computer, and boot back into your Linux install normally.  If you’re fussy like me, you’ll want to edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst to say Windows 7 instead of Windows XP.

On a side note, if you’re tripple booting Windows XP, Windows 7, and Linux, like I am at work, you will only have two options in your GRUB menu: Linux and Windows.  If you slect windows, you’ll be presented with the Windows boot loader to select between Windows XP and Windows 7.

I’m sure it’s possible to boot directly into each from GRUB, but I don’t boot into windows enough to make the extra keystroke that much of an inconvenience.

The folder, for reference is:  C:\Users\[username]\.ssh

I dropped my keys into the folder, and thought I’d be off and running.  Not so much!

SSH gave me a notice that the permissions on my keystore files were “too open”.  I looked at the permissions, and my user was the only one with access.  Funny.  A little bit of quality time with Google found me a quick and easy answer:  Set the compatibility mode on ssh.exe to windows XP.

To do this, navigate to C:\Program Files\OpenSSH\bin\  and then right click on ssh.exe.  Choose properties.  In the compatibility tab, click the box to use compatibility mode, and select Windows XP.  OK out, and you should be done.

SSH behaved normally for me after this fix.