May Month in Review – Pseudorant Articles
Pseudorant Month in Review – Tutorials, Articles, and Rants!
Hey everyone! Welcome to the Pseudorant Month in Review. I am doing the Month in Review article because this is the first full month of articles Pseudorant has written on our domain.
A lot of interesting things have happened this month. We have learned a lot of new things about computers and linux. We acquired a new author for the blog. We got setup on numerous social networks, and setup our RSS feed on FeedBurner.
In fact so much has been going on that it seemed fitting to do a review post that links to all the articles we have published this month. If you have been checking out the blog regularly we appreciate the continued support. If you are new to the blog “Welcome!” and we hope you have found something of interest.
As we continue to build the blog and improve the site we would really appreciate feedback from our readers on any changes, improvements or additions they would like to see on the site. We are very interested to hear people’s thoughts so please do not hesitate to email, comment, or slide ransom notes under the door. (Although the last method is least preferred.)
I hope you continue to enjoy our Pseudorants. Joe and I will continue to do out best to provide interesting and worthwhile content. Thanks for checking us out!
May – Month in Review!
Blogs
05-05-2008 - What Makes Content Valuable or Interesting?
05-19-2008 - The Blogs First New Author!
05-26-2008 - Pseudorant on Twitter’s Micro-Blogging Social Network
05-30-2008 - Pseudorant on FeedBurner! - Help us Burn our RSS Feed!
Internet
05-02-2008 - Why Google Alerts are So Useful!
05-04-2008 - What is Web 2.0? Web 2.0 is coming!
05-13-2008 - Content Management Systems – Joomla
05-22-2008 - Remove the Welcome to the Frontpage in Joomla
Linux
05-08-2008 - What Version of Linux is Right for Me?
05-09-2008 - Kubuntu Linux Successfully Installed
05-11-2008 - Video Tutorial - Installing Kubuntu Linux on a Laptop
05-16-2008 - How to Install Windows on Linux
05-17-2008 - How to Install Programs in Kubuntu Linux
05-20-2008 - How to Install Apache, MySQL, and PHP on your Linux Box
05-21-2008 - How to Install Firefox in Linux using Apt-Get
05-29-2008 - AddAsPodcast Bug for Amarok on Kubuntu
Money
05-24-2008 - Practical Ways to Make Money Online by Selling on eBay
05-25-2008 - How to Make Money Online with FREE Gift Cards
Rants
05-03-2008 - Grand Theft Auto IV is the Root of All Evil!
05-07-2008 - Microsoft is the Debil! Linux Here I Come!
05-10-2008 - Windows Movie Maker Hates My Samsung SC-DX10
05-15-2008 - More Reasons Why I Hate Microsoft
05-28-2008 - Too Many Business Requirements from End Users
Video
05-01-2008 - The Count Censored – Sesame Street – Viral Video
05-06-2008 - Today’s Moment of Zen – The Hardest Level in Mario
05-12-2008 - Watch Family Guy Episodes Online
05-18-2008 - Watch Movies Online & Streaming TV Shows on Your PC
05-23-2008 - Disturbing Video of the Week – Schwar-chan
05-27-2008 - VLC Media Player – Play Videos without Codecs
Pseudorant on FeedBurner! - Help us Burn our RSS Feed!
Blog now on Feed Burner, Please Subscribe to our RSS Feed!
Hey everyone! You have probably noticed the new Feed Burner icon on the site. Ya I know, it has a purple background in the widget space. As someone with the OCD this is all I have been able to think about for the past 20 hours.
Joe who is more of a wiz with stylesheets and widgets than I am, has already instructed me on how to fix it but being the creative individual that I am, I implemented the code in a ”unique” way so I am waiting to hear back from him on the new fix.
But other than that, Pseudorant is now signed up on Feed Burner so please subscribe to our RSS feed. We still want you to visit the site because that’s the best way to truly immerse yourself in the bulk of our rants, but when you can’t make it to the site then settle for the next best thing… RSS!
We are currently at 12 subscribers on our RSS feed, but we are hoping for a lot more.
We will be hosting a small contest for all the readers that once we hit 250 subscribers we will post several sets of custom made icons, available for people to use in their blogs.
I am very obsessed with “Glass” buttons and will be making a bunch for our new theme that we will be implementing soon. (But I can’t talk about that now.)
I will be making many extras that we will be hosting for our readers to download, once we have hit our goal of 250 subscribers! So tell your friends and get them to subscribe!
If you have not already subscribed please check it out. Every last subscription counts! Thanks again for checking out the site. We always appreciate the support!
AddAsPodcast Bug for Amarok on Kubuntu
Does it really have to remind me every time I move my mouse?
I recently switched to Linux from Windows XP, and I could not be happier, but getting where I am today has not been a walk in the park. A friend once told me that “Linux isn’t free, you pay for it with your time” and although that may be true to some extent, it is not as true today as it once was.
That being said, I thought that I would chronicle my experiences with Kubuntu and write an article on any inconveniences I come across as a former “Windows user”. To start things off, here is a very annoying bug between Amarok and Dolphin - a combination of two bugs.
For those of you who are not familiar with these programs, Dolphin is the file explorer for KDE that comes with Kubuntu, and Amarok is the popular media player for KDE. Apparently, developers for Amarok forgot a line in one of their .desktop files (menu/shell extensions for dolphin) which results in an error. Meanwhile, developers of Dolphin thought it would be really funny if every time you had an error message in a .desktop file it should show a popup error message to tell you about it.
Now, if you don’t do anything with .html files or xml files, then you may never see this bug, but if you do then you’ll know what I mean. Dolphin accesses the broken file every time you mouse over an html or xml file, which means just moving your mouse over a file with a .html, .htm, or .xml extension will cause a popup error message to appear. This is unbelievably frustrating if you do any kind of web development, but at least it is fairly simple to fix.
Just open Dolphin (click on the System menu next to the K menu and select any folder) and click on the shortcut on the left-hand side for “root”. Then go to /usr/share/apps/d3lphin/servicemenus and look for the file named “amarok_addaspodcast.desktop” (it will probably be the first file listed).
Right click on it and choose Actions -> “Edit as root” from the submenu. Find the line that says “Icon=amarok” and add the following line after it (without quotes):
“Exec=amarok -a %u”
Save the file and you’re all set!
If for some reason the option for “Edit as root” doesn’t appear under the Actions menu, you can go up one folder and right click on the servicemenus folder and choose Actions -> “Open as root”. Then you should be able to just open the file normally and still be able to make changes.
Too Many Business Requirements from End Users
An ambitious project using MSFA failed due to demand-overload
My company started an ambitious project to run our entire ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system as a web application, and they were prepared to throw a lot of time and resources at the project to make it work.
We hired a consultant who had experience managing large scale projects and also had an extensive background with writing web applications. We even hired additional staff solely for this project. Despite all of our efforts, the project still ended up as a costly failure.
Now, there were a number of reasons why the project failed, but I would like to focus on what I believe to be the most significant problem: “too much, too fast.”
First, let me provide a little background on the software that we are currently using for our ERP. It is approximately 10 years old, and extremely limited in what it can do. Although it supports some standards such as SQL (a given for any database application) it has a number of bugs that prevent these features from being usable, meaning complex workarounds are necessary for almost every facet of our business.
There are upgrades for the software that fix these bugs and expand functionality, but since it is an “off the shelf” retail application upgrading all of our existing systems is prohibitively expensive. Especially considering that the most recent version would not satisfy all of our business needs and would only be viable as a temporary solution anyway.
We have done pretty well with what we have available, but it is just not enough. Admittedly, many of the problems we have are not with the software itself but with how we use it (and abuse it).
This project, which we started in november of 2007, was not the first attempt to migrate from our disfunctional ERP system, however it was the first attempt we had made using a proven methodology instead of just “winging it”.
You may have heard of Microsoft Foundations for Agile Software Development (MSFA) before, which is the methodology recommended to us by our consultant.
Part of this process involved defining Business Rules (what the current software does now), Business Requirements (what the new software would be required to do), and Use Cases (examples of how the current software is used).
All of this is intended to give a very clear definition of what functionality in the old system needs to be preserved in the new system, and what it will be expected to do better.
So if we allocated plenty of resources for the project, followed a proven methodology, and had experience from failed projects in the past, then why did this project fail? I believe the reason that had the largest impact was the fact that the end users both defined the business requirements and approved them.
Needless to say, this is a recipe for disaster since end users are focused on entirely different problems than developers are. I’d hate to use a car analogy, but if we were building a car, the end users would be more worried about leather seats and air conditioning, while we the developers are just trying to get the engine and transmission to work together so that we can move forward.
Now don’t get me wrong here, nobody knows more about what a system should do than the end users, since they are the ones who have to put up with it.
Ideally, they could provide a wish list of things they want the system to do and the developers could prioritize them based on how feasible they are. Unfortunately, there were several people at each development team meeting that probably should not have been, prioritizing power windows as more important than having a windshield.
Although this project left a bitter taste in my mouth, I learned a lot from it.
As of today I have been told that the project “isn’t dead, it’s just sleeping”, suggesting that we will pick it up again sometime when there is less going on.
Fortunately, I’m not that naive and I can see that the project as we envisioned it this time around is not only no longer reasonable, but should not even be considered desirable.
What we need is to get back to the source of the problems we are having now, and carefully work out as much of the details as we can before we start hiring additional resources to help.
VLC Media Player – Play Videos without Codecs
VLC Player – The Codec-less Media Player
A friend of mine was asking me about codecs the other day. He told me that he had spent hours downloading a video only to find out that it wouldn’t play on his computer. He told me that every time he tried to load the video he would get a message about the player trying to acquire the correct codecs.
He said that each time it would fail, and finally he gave up on trying to play the video altogether and deleted it from his hard drive. He seemed really frustrated about this because of the time and energy he spent trying to get the video to play only to end up deleting the file.
That was when I told him about VLC Media Player.
VLC player is a media player that does not require video codecs in order to play movies. In fact, VLC can play almost anything you throw at it without any trouble. This is great to know because how many times have you been sitting there trying to get a video to play, only to realize it was encoded with some strange video codec you had never heard of.
VLC will also play files that are corrupted or broken, with the parts of the video you actually have. This can be great for testing video clips, trying to recover a movie, or for purely experimental purposes.
VLC player is a free program that can be downloaded from Videolan.org. It is a very small download of less than 10 mbs and is used by millions of people around the world.
If you are new to VLC player I would highly recommend checking it out. Or if you are just looking for a new media player or are running into codec issues this is definitely the way to go.
Thanks for checking out Pseudorant! We appreciate the support.
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