jzb

jzb, 16 days ago to random

Someday I will stop typing :wq in other text editors / programs to save and quit my work.

Someday. That day, apparently, is not today.

jzb, 16 days ago to animals

Two members of my editorial staff. Everything I write is purr reviewed. #CatsOfMastodon

jzb, 22 days ago to random

Seeing a lot of chatter about attitudes towards newcomers for people getting started with Linux.

I had no idea what I was doing in 1996 when I started with Slackware. Nor did I know anyone using Linux at all.

Got it installed, but couldn't get XFree86 going. Sent an email to support@ from the back of the CD case. Patrick Volkerding himself responded & kindly walked me through what I needed to do.

Probably would've dropped the idea of using Linux if I'd been met with hostility instead.

jzb, 30 days ago to random

Just curious - of folks who follow me here on Mastodon, what is your desktop of choice? KDE Plasma, GNOME, Mate, Cinnamon, Cosmic, Xfce, other?

(Tried a poll, but apparently Mastodon only allows 4 options? That's woefully insufficient.)

jzb, 1 month ago to opensource

I do believe that Willow is happy that I’m back from Open Source Summit. #opensource #catsofmastodon #tortie

Willow, a tortoiseshell cat, napping happily.

jzb, 2 months ago to random

Bit of a rough weekend. Our most senior lab (nearly 14!) had been having some behavior changes (extra barky, losing weight) and last exam showed cancer.

A few days ago she started showing more signs of distress and discomfort (whining, heavy breathing, what seems to be disorientation). I had hoped she'd rally, have a few more good weeks or months, but it doesn't seem to be going that way.

We decided we should say goodbye tomorrow, after the oldest can come home from college to her. It sucks.

jzb, 2 months ago to random

Any Flathub admins around on Mastodon? I've emailed a question about verification a day ago and haven't received any response yet.

#Flathub #Flatpak

jzb, 4 months ago to random

Hrmph. On GitHub's release pages it lists releases as "4 days ago," "3 weeks ago," "last month" until some point when it actually then lists the actual date.

That is super annoying if you're looking at a page and want an actual, specific date.

jzb, 4 months ago to animals

It’s movie night. Watched “Maggie Moore(s)” with some excellent company. #caturday #catsofmastodon

Cupcake (a black and white cat) grooming her brother Sir Wobbles (an orange and white cat). They are facing away from the camera with tails entwined.

jzb, 5 months ago to random

That didn't take long! After Hashicorp's zero day licensing event in August last year with Terraform, you can test out the OpenTofu project's first stable release (1.6) as a drop-in, production-ready replacement.

https://dissociatedpress.net/2024/01/10/opentofu-project-serves-up-stable-release/

jzb, 5 months ago to animals

Sam’s impatiently waiting for Christmas to arrive. #catsofmastodon #catmaseve

jzb, 5 months ago to random

Article I wrote on Bluefin for LWN is now available to non-subscribers: https://lwn.net/Articles/954059/ (Of course, if you're a Linux enthusiast or in the larger community, shouldn't you be a subscriber?)

Bluefin is a variation on Fedora Silverblue plus a lot of additional customization and refinement that makes it even more interesting. If you're looking to tinker with a new Linux desktop over the holidays, you should start here. Big props to the Universal Blue and Fedora communities for this.

jzb, 6 months ago to random

Bitwarden gets it right - a yearly subscription is very little money for personal use ($10 a year) and they give you ample heads up that it's about to renew in the event you want to cancel.

I often wonder about subscription-based software and pricing. Whether companies would make more money and have a larger user base if they brought down the pricing to make it a no-brainer to subscribe. Bitwarden is definitely a no-brainer for me.

jzb, 6 months ago to random

Really wish Masto had quote boosting but this thread is really worth a read.

This is just some of the work that goes into maintaining RHEL that is basically invisible / taken for granted by most people.

There's so much more that goes into maintaining a distribution than repackaging upstreams. That work isn't cheap and it's not going to happen organically.

https://mastodon.social/@csoriano/111489425631719327

jzb, 6 months ago to animals

Sir Wobbles is keeping me company for an episode of Strange New Worlds. #Caturday #catsofmastodon #CatsOfFediverse

jzb, 6 months ago to animals

You ever feel like you’re being… watched? #CatsOfFediverse #catsofmastodon 😺

jzb, 6 months ago to animals

Sir Wobbles sends Thanksgiving wishes to all who celebrate. #CatsOfFediverse #catsofmastodon

jzb, 7 months ago to random

The promise of federation seems to be much greater than the reality.

Example: Posted something to my account on Pixelfed a few hours ago. Still doesn't show up on Mastodon.

It's unclear to me when or whether content posted by people I follow on other instances actually makes it to me in my feed.

jzb, 7 months ago to random

The tech industry is... how should I say this... maybe not great right now?

But got a note today from a long-time friend today about a passion project of his (under wraps, but it's cool AF and will be announced real soon) that reminds me what drew me to this industry.

The tech, the people, and trying to solve problems. When you lose sight of those things with only money as your "North Star" (ick), it starts to get pretty toxic. If you keep those in mind, things can be pretty great.

jzb, 7 months ago to random

Will be at #AllThingsOpen this afternoon - if you're there + I haven't caught up with you, hope I'll catch you today!

jzb, 8 months ago to linux

What do #Linux books fail to cover that you'd like to see in a book? What is covered too much? (Please boost for reach, I'd love to get a lot of feedback on this if possible.) #OpenSource #Documentation

jzb, 8 months ago to animals

The good: Bubby, our 18-year-old diabetic and arthritic cat seems to be responding well to laser treatments and feeling more active.

The bad: "More active" takes place while I'm trying to sleep when Bubby decides at 1:30 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. he'd like to romp around the house and have a little snack, and I should open the door and make that possible... #catsofmastodon

jzb, 8 months ago to random

There's an angry cursing emoji (🤬 ) and I use that a fair amount, but we also need a happy curse emoji - because sometimes something is just %^#!ing awesome and we should have an emoji for that too.

jzb, 8 months ago to random

Remember - it's a terrible terrible thing if powerful members of society are even mildly confronted or inconvenienced for their actions while dining out or whatnot.

But it's OK for people like Trump and Musk to single out people for their followers to harass -- knowing that it will expose them the potential for real violence and disruption for them and their families.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/18/opinion/trump-elon-musk-twitter.html

jzb, 8 months ago to random

Scheduled my COVID / Flu shots for next week on Tuesday. How about you?