Richard A. Johnson - Blog Archives

Help me in the fight against diabetes

Richard A. Johnson — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:09:40 +0000

The fight against diabetes is important to me and very close to my heart. I am participating in the American Diabetes Association’s (ADA) Chicagoland Tour de Cure, riding 100 miles on my bicycle, and I have a very important goal that I hope you can help me with.

I am aiming to raise a minimum of $1000 and become a Champion to Stop Diabetes. Champions are leaders in the quest to prevent and cure diabetes once and for all. I am passionate about the cause and that drives me to this goal!

Whether you give $5 or $250, know that your contribution will help the ADA offer community-based education programs, protect the rights of people with diabetes and fund critical research for a cure.

Please help me in my quest to become a Champion by clicking on the link at the bottom of this email to give. Together we can Stop Diabetes!

THANK YOU!

Help me in the fight against diabetes is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

The Answer Is No

Richard A. Johnson — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 18:00:43 +0000

The answer is no, is definitely not the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, as we all know that answer is 42. The answer no is for the following:

Is this the year of the Linux desktop?

This was the title of a post recently on someone’s blog that’s been picked up many times by different Linux news outlets. I woke up 3 days in a row with that stupid post in my reader. I’m tired of it 10 years ago, and I am still tired of it today. Here is why I feel that answer is no, and of course you are more than welcome to disagree.

I have a couple of newer, fairly powerful desktop/laptop machines. I typically run Kubuntu 12.10 on both of these machines, but I have tried various other distributions as well. I have tried Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSUSE, Mint, and a handful of others. The one thing they all have in common with Windows Vista? They are slow. Intel i7 or i5, 3rd generation, with no less than 8GB of RAM, and one has a SSD, and they are still slow. Slow compared to Windows 8. Windows 8 might be the donkey’s ass when it comes to a desktop operating system, but I’ll be damned, it is faster than any Linux desktop distribution out there today. It is even faster than one of the distributions running XFCE or LXDE.

I don’t get this the least bit, what happened to the good ol’ days where Linux was the fastest thing to hit the desktop? Have we decided to scrub performance for silly cartoonist styling and bling? Is it the many desktop search daemons? Does it have to do with the poor battery performance? What is it? Why does Windows 8 boot up faster for me? Why does Windows 8 run better for me? None of the pieces of my systems use binary blobs, they are all Intel rigs. Speaking of poor battery performance, I love getting 2.5 hours with Linux (Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Fedora tested here) where Windows 8 gets over 4 hours. What the hell is abusing that other 1.5 hours my battery can hold? Powertop puts blame on eth0, WiFi, and other things you need running, but damn, 1.5 hours!

On a more positive note, but still not causing a switch in answer to that oh so famous, yet supremely stupid question, applications for Linux are starting to build. With Microsoft announcing their stupid rules for Office 2013 (no, it isn’t coming to Linux, so quit drooling) where you can only install Office on 1 machine and 1 machine only, LibreOffice is looking like a better option these days. Now there is Steam, so those of you who were itching to play games on Linux, have at it! I have Spotify running natively and it is quite nice. And, as a developer, nothing comes close to beating Linux on the desktop. As a developer, I don’t mean one of those that drinks Starbucks all day, waxes their mustache, wears jeans 10 sizes to small, and code in Ruby. I mean one that writes code for compiling, or writing scripts and applications for servers and cloud crap in Python, or just saying the hell with it and copying and pasting in PHP.

That is my rant for the day, and the end to some sarcasm. So quit trying to get visitors with stupid posts that have the same answer as they did 20 years ago and have no chance of changing anytime soon.

PS: NO, this does not apply to OMG Ubuntu!

The Answer Is No is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

2013 Tour de Cure

Richard A. Johnson — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 00:40:59 +0000

I just signed up to ride in the American Diabetes Association’s Tour de Cure. I’d like to invite you to support me in my efforts to Stop Diabetes!

Tour de Cure is so much more than an event to me. It’s my opportunity to change the future and make a positive impact in the lives of all those affected by diabetes. And it’s a great ride!

Chances are, you also know someone who has been affected by diabetes and you already know how important it is to stop this disease. My goal is to raise $1,000 USD. Will you join me by visiting my personal page and making a donation?

By supporting me, you will help the American Diabetes Association provide community-based education programs, protect the rights of people with diabetes and fund critical research for a cure.

The power we have together far outweighs what I can do alone. Please join me by donating to this great cause – it would mean so much to me!

Thank you!

2013 Tour de Cure is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Kicking for a cure

Richard A. Johnson — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 04:08:44 +0000

Kick for Cures 2012 is an event to collect donations that gets distributed to many charities. This year, my friend’s two kids are participating in the event. Their goal is $500 USD, however I heard last week that their instructor will give $100 USD to them if they reach $1,000 USD. If you can help out that is greatly appreciated.

Donate to Jenna & Nick Cannella!

Thanks everyone!

Kicking for a cure is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Bluecherry Releases Version 2.0

Richard A. Johnson — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 06:01:28 +0000

My friends over at Bluecherry have released version 2.0 of their video surveillance software as well as version 2.0 of their server software. If you are in the market for a video surveillance solution, I wouldn’t look any further than Bluecherry. Their dedication to utilizing as well as contributing to the open source world make them my favorite solution.

From my personal experience, the system is pretty damn slick. The server uses MySQL and Apache to store configuration settings as well as to give a web interface to your surveillance system. On top of that, they also offer a nice GUI client built with Qt4. The system supports all type of cameras and they even have their own video capture cards with an open source driver. Oh, did I mention that they have ready-made packages for Ubuntu and/or Debian? I have it running on my Kubuntu 12.04 system flawlessly, though I don’t have any cameras yet, so I just check it out with their Test configuration. Maybe one of these days my house will be under video surveillance.

Head on over to their website, links above, and check out their products, services, and their growing community! Kudos to my friends at Bluecherry!

Bluecherry Releases Version 2.0 is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.