Spreading Open Source (sort of)

Fri, Jul 11, 2008 09:25 PM

So, I know I just had a kid, but I am at a friends house helping with some computer issues. This is the friend that took my wife to the hospital and sat with her until I got there, after all. She is also the friend that took my other five kids in while we were at the hospital. So, I owe her big time.

First a little backstory. A few years ago, I started installing Firefox and Thunderbird on my non-technical friend's computers. I would label the Firefox icon "Internet" and the Thunderbird icon "Email". This made it simple for them. I would also install OpenOffice on those machines that did not have the full Microsoft Office package and show them that it could do all the same things that they needed MS Office for.

Anyhow, I am helping this friend by installing XP Service Pack 3 and remove some malware that somehow got on here. While waiting on Windows, I notice that my usual pattern of installing FF, TB and OOO.org are all done on this machine. What is cool is that I have never used this computer before. This one is new to me. So, that means this friend sought out Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice all on her own and installed them for her family the same way I always have.

Now, I am not naive enough to think that my friend suddenly understands Open Source. She is not using it because she wants to be a part of the open source movement. But, it does make me feel good to help spread open source if even from the user perspective. It is also a testament to those applications and how far they have come.

Hudson is born!

Wed, Jul 9, 2008 07:21 PM

Well, it was not as planned, but he is here. Our 6th child, Hudson Bennett Moon came into the world this morning at 8:53AM. All of our children have been born via C section. The plan was to come in at around 10AM on the 16th to deliver Hudson the same way. Well, yesterday my wife starting having some pains that the doctors did not like. They watched her overnight and decided this morning to go ahead and perform the C section this morning. It was a whirlwind. We waited all night to see what was going to happen. Then, at 8:25AM, the nurse came in and said that we were doing it at 8:45 and that my wife was to be wheeled in to the OR in 5 minutes. We franticlly called friends and family. None of them were there. We assumed (you know how that goes) that we would have an hour or something. No such luck. So, by 8:53 he was here and at 9:40 we were all in a room with baby and family. Everyone is healthy. Mom feels better than she did the last 3 weeks.

Click for a slideshow

Oh Hail!

Sun, Jun 1, 2008 05:38 PM

We had a huge hail storm today.

Big Hail Storm

It came out of nowhere. It was kind of scary.

Here is a photo that may yield more perspective.

Snow!

Sat, Mar 8, 2008 02:57 PM

Wow! For the second time this year we had snow for the kids to play in. It was all gone by noon, but we got out early and took some pictures. Click the picture below to see more.

Sharper Image Bankrupt?

Wed, Feb 20, 2008 03:14 PM

I first saw it on dealnews, and read more on Google News. So, selling lame stuff for really high prices doesn't pay the bill? Huh. Who knew?

Trying out Twitter

Thu, Feb 7, 2008 07:47 PM

I have decided to try out Twitter. Mostly it is a curiousity about what it does and how it works. The recent outages baffle me. It seems like a very simple application. I am hoping to find the thing that makes it a tough thing to scale out and/or up. (Other than it being built on Rails that is.)

http://twitter.com/brianlmoon

This is so geeky and cool!

Fri, Feb 1, 2008 04:57 PM

My coworker Rob is building a little project at home. After some bad experience with cheap black box servers, he got some used Dell's. Now, he has done this. Heh, is pretty cool.

Sleeping with an iPhone

Fri, Feb 1, 2008 11:11 AM

You know those NyQuil commercials where the guy tells his wife "You will sleep like you did before you had kids." Well, that is so true. Before I had kids I laid my head down, slept and then rose in the morning fresh. I only needed about 5 hours sleep. But, after I had kids and started worrying about them all night long, I could not do that. I can still do it when I am away from home which is odd.

Now, after all this time with kids (I have 5 in case you don't know) they hardly ever wake in the middle of the night. But, my mind is conditioned to wake on the slightest noise. We moved out into a quieter (aka more rural) part of the state 3 years ago. Hardly any traffic on the road late at night. I find myself waking at the slightest noise: the icemaker, a dog barking, our dog getting up and stretching, or that very rare car.

So, after a restless night, I got the kids up and ready for school at 6AM like usual. But, I was determined to get some more sleep. So, I stuck in my ear buds and turned on my iPhone's iPod. While it was not solid uninterrupted sleep, it was better than what I had all night. I need to find some soft music or soothing sounds that will run for several hours. That may provide the best sleep. That and some more comfortable earbuds for sleeping. It is either that or take down our nice quiet Hunter ceiling fan and get the cheapest, loudest one I can find. That always worked in our older houses.

People still write... with pens and stuff

Wed, Jan 23, 2008 01:36 PM

Earlier this week Terry Chay wrote about his little notebook. I have to wonder if that inspired this xkcd comic or not. Is that your real reason for writing in that notebook Terry?

A coworker of mine has rediscovered the usefulness of a notebook. Yesterday while at our datacenter, he kept notes in his notebook while I typed on my iPhone.

I have self diagnosed myself with dysgraphia. It really does hurt me to write. So, I only do it when I have no other choice. I will type you a book. But, I don't want to write the shortest note.

Working out this year?

Tue, Jan 8, 2008 10:09 PM

It is that time of year when folks promise themselves to get into better shape. This is usually my time every year to do that. The holidays always put some extra weight on me.

I know from going to conferences that there are some health conscious geeks out there. Well, I found a geeky way to help with that.

Some guys here in Huntsville have started a fitness and health tracking site called Gyminee. They are in the same business incubator that dealnews was in several years ago. It is all Rails and MySQL. It is quite convenient for me and some other guys at work since they built an iPhone interface. Basic accounts are free and fairly full featured. There are some advanced features that do require a small membership fee. If I would just quit buying one latte a month it will pay for it.

For the record, I have no stake in this place. I am just a user and I happen to have met the guys to give them some pointers on some things on their site.