[UPDATE 09/20/2014] I have completed Drupal migration.

[UPDATE 09/28/2014] I’ve added my old Movable Type posts.  Still a lot of cleansing that has to happen and relinking of images.

[UPDATE 09/30/2014] I have cleansed and reformatted posts to Jan 2003. Still trying to figure out if I should bring in the comments.

I have finally begun the arduous process of importing posts from 4 different platforms:

• Octopress: November 2011 – July 2013 (completed)
  • This was easy–everything was using markdown and there wasn’t much content.
• Drupal: September 2008 – April 2011 (completed)
  • At the time, I wanted to save hosting costs and was self-hosting it off a linux server from my home. I migrated the install to a virtual machine so I have a functioning Drupal 6 install.
• Textpattern: November 2005 – October 2007 (completed)
  • This was a bit trickier.  I had the SQL export from the database using an old version of Textpattern (4.0x).  I was able to get the database loaded onto a modern install of Textpattern and was able output the RSS feed to import to WordPress.
• MovableType: Feb 2002 – July 2004 (imported, data cleansing in-progress)
  • All I have is the static files for this.  Will need to investigate a bit more.
  • Imported, cleansing posts.

Hopefully I will figured out a solution for Drupal and the Movable Type pages.  It would be nice if I could retain comments, but that is a long shot.

My site has been running in some form since 2002.  However, I have lost data multiple times and I have always meant to go back…get my old posts back on the web, but I never do.

It doesn’t help that I keep changing blogging platforms. Movable Type, Textpattern, ModX, Tumblr, Octopress…

I’ve committed to getting it back up in 2014.  I’m sure that it will be more likely than declaring that this year is the “Year of the Linux Desktop”.

I bought a new camera: Fuji X-T1

I have been a big fan of my Fuji X-Pro 1.  I bought it used back in Summer of 2013–it’s made photography fun again for me.

When Fuji announced the SLR format X-T1, I was a bit torn.  I really liked the “range-finder” style of the X-Pro 1.  It slowed me down. Made me think about what I wanted to capture, how I wanted to capture.  I would say that I’d took 1/10th less pictures, but my “hit” rate was substantially higher.  

The X-T1 gave me great pause.

Would I go back to shooting in burst mode?

I bit the bullet today (about 2-days just shy of being able to take advantage of Henry.com’s free vertical grip offer…) and pre-ordered it with an XF 23mm 1.4 lens.

So I had some server unpleasantness that I noticed after I posted my 2014 Goals post. The site just froze and logins were barely possible.

I immediately SSH’d into the prgmr.com server, but was greeted by an extremely slow console.  I actually had to access the VPS Xen configuration menu and do a hard shutdown of the instance.  When I rebooted and accessed the server through the out-of-band console, I was getting out of memory errors galore.

The culprit?  A combination of MySQL, ClamAV and Amavisd.

After disabling ClamAV and Amavisd, I was able to stabilize the server, but the 1GB RAM VPS was still dangerously low on memory with 10-12 MySQL threads that I couldn’t clear.

So I took the unprecedented move to rebuild the server.  Two days later I am running fine again.  This time, I was a little bit careful of the installed services–with an emphasis on pruning unneeded services.

Hopefully I won’t ever have to do it again.

Tai

I’ve been thinking about 2014 and what, if any, goals I have.

For the past few years, I don’t think I’ve been focusing much on me as a person–there were other more concrete things that I could latch on like my family or my career.  They seemed right at the time; no ill feelings towards my choices to date.

With that, there are three things that I want to focus on:

• health
• writing
• reading

Health

There is no doubt that I need to get my act together.  I’ve started Yoga (which is killing me) as a form of low-ish impact exercise.  Granted, there really isn’t any exercise that is low-impact for me.  I guess this is what happens when I’m 40 lbs weight. My goal is to do it consistently, twice a week for 2014. I swear, sometimes it’s like I’ve forgotten how breath.

I really need to pick up my racquet again and join a club.

Writing

I’ve mentioned this before, but writing is a very cathartic experience for me.  I simply do not do it enough.  Often times, I’m conflicted about the stuff I write and whether it has enough gravitas.  I need to get over that and open up.  My goal is to write once a week–and do it for myself. (Besides, it’s not like people are reading this).

Reading

You figure that working at an eReading place would make me read more–it does, but I need to be doing it more.  Much of the reading I do is throw away or work related (“KANBAN!”) or reading with my kids (The Geronimo & Stella Stilton series is getting much traction).  What I really need to do is escape and find those books that distract me and unshackle my mind to dream big again.

The computing power available in consoles far exceeds anything that people need. The move to general purpose x86 APUs to power the software experiences means that consoles will become an networked, general purpose device along side new smart TVs that every television manufacturer is pushing these days.  In fact, it looks like XBox One will at least be able to run a limited subset of Windows 8 applications.

ASIDE: I wouldn’t be surprised if the Xbox One runs a stripped down version of Windows 8

It’s clear to me that Valve saw a large opportunity to innovate and have been planning the foundations for this work for well over a year. They saw several trends and have capitalized on the opportunity in a big way:

• Steam’s Big picture captured the emerging trend of HDTV PC gaming/computing.
• The ever increasing number of console ports to PC meant existing gaming console hardware controllers could be used, and TV gaming great.
• The hardware necessary to drive a sufficiently good 1080p experience is readily available.
• Software like Plex, XBMC as front-ends for HDTV computing make the experience good.
• The PC, as a form-factor, is in decline.
• Hardware OEMS like Acer, HP, Dell, and Lenovo are pissed at Microsoft and desperatelywant out of the licensing deal.
• Digital distribution of games is a reality

With High-Definition  TV panels becoming the main “information display”, it makes sense to enter the space.  However, unlike Netflix, with their excellent OEM distribution (basically any piece of hardware that can connect to a TV including Xbox, Wii, and Playstation), Valve lacks a hardware preload strategy.

Here’s the genius: With the average PC-margin hovering at around 3-5% net, OEMs looking for ways to reduce the licensing cost of the Windows hegemony.  Moreover, they are looking for ways to compete on margin and are more than happy to explore new form factors. ((If there is one thing I credit Windows 8, is that it has allowed OEMs to experiment with different computing form-factors / designs that I find appealing — like the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro or even the MS Surface Pro.)) A gaming console / media box makes sense, but most boxes (as characterized by the WD TV Live) are sub-$100 boxes. However, with Valve’s announcement of a royalty-free OS, high-margin catalogue of new releases and abandonware, you ave compelling platform offering with SteamBox.  I’m sure OEMs are more than happy to spend some R&D dollars towards the experiment.

With support by major hardware OEMs, it’s not surprising to see AMD and nVidia make progress on Linux only drivers–it’s the same hardware in the PS4 and Xbox One!

Here are my bets:

• Valves strategy will play out over the next 3-years.
• Microsoft will make their Xbox One experience available as a digital download–you’ll be able to run your Xbox games on your WIndows 8 PC.
• PC OEMs will manufacture generic gaming consoles certified for Windows 8.x w/ the Xbox One Experience and Steam OS, but Valve will have the upper-hand because they will support game streaming to android and iOS mobile devices.
• Game streaming from a single high-end PC to lighter / thinner clients will be norm by 2015.

It’s a Win-Win for Valve.  They’re platform is will be available on all the platforms that matter. ((I’m presuming that they are working on a way to stream Steam OS games onto Android or iOS.))