Red Box October 6, 2007
Posted by Garrison in Case Study, Essays, Linux, Telephony.6 comments
I finally built a red box, not the phone phreak device that generates coin tones for pay phones, but rather a Linux PBX which gives me the power and flexibility of a commercial grade phone system at a fraction of the cost. I call it a red box because the primary VoIP number I chose suggests [1]June 20, 1963– the day the “red telephone” went live between Washington and Moscow. Once I painted the side panels a nice, shiny red, I decided that in keeping with the metallic network naming I use (cobalt, tungsten, strontium, etc.) the best name for my new PBX would be ‘copper’. (more…)
Voodoo Programming September 16, 2007
Posted by Garrison in Essays, Linux, Perl.add a comment
One of the reasons I’m a consultant is because I love to solve problems; this does not mean, however, that I enjoy all the problems I solve, nor that the pursuit is always rewarding in itself. This week I got stuck in a mind-bender that had all the satisfying crunch of a soggy pretzel. (more…)
Music on the Go (part 2) July 9, 2007
Posted by Garrison in Essays, Reviews.3 comments
The first Ogg-friendly music player I purchased was a Neuros II; 
this was late in 2004 and hardware support was fairly new as the Vorbis codec didn’t reach 1.0 until 2002. Then, as now, the best place for information on Ogg-friendly devices was XiphWiki. I recall being quite impresssed with Neuros’ willingness to open up the device specifications and embrace the Open Source community, unfortunately the device suffered from a number of design flaws that no amount of firmware hacking could ever resolve. Ultimately the combination of charging problems, a design plagued by awkwardness and bulk, and the manufacturer’s shift to focus on newer devices doomed the Neuros II to my technology junk drawer. (more…)
Music on the Go (part one) June 25, 2007
Posted by Garrison in Essays, Reviews.add a comment
I have music on my mind. I’m listening to Voodoo Child (ten point bonus if you know how this relates to Doctor Who) and thinking about my next portable music player. Like most geeks, the first question I ask about any digital music device is, “does it play OGG?”
Generally superior to MP3, Ogg Vorbis is a must for any lossy digital music collection, but it’s not the only feature I look for in a music player. I use four basic criteria to judge music players: (more…)
A Linux Success Story May 29, 2007
Posted by Garrison in Case Study, Essays, Linux.add a comment
I’m working on a marketing letter, and I’ll be using one of my favorite success stories which is about Russ, owner of a small Internet service provider (ISP) providing web hosting, e-mail, and related services to his local community.
Once upon a time, I would listen to Russ complain of problems with his proprietary e-mail server, then I would suggest he let me set up a Linux server running open source software, and Russ would sigh, “Yeah, I really should…” but he could usually get his e-mail running again without too much help and everything would continue as before. (more…)
Digital Photography with Linux May 17, 2007
Posted by Garrison in Essays, Linux, Photography.add a comment
During the summer of 1982, I borrowed a 35mm camera from my father and enrolled in a photography workshop; I took surprisingly decent photographs with that old Argus C3 and found that I very much enjoyed working in the darkroom as well. Still the oldest camera I own, the Argus has long been retired to my camera collection in favor newer models, most recently a Canon Digital Rebel XT. Today I am writing from the perspective of one fortunate enough to enjoy the intersection of two interests. (more…)
Happy Birthday, Codefix August 22, 2006
Posted by Garrison in Essays, Linux.add a comment
Today is sort of a birthday for Codefix: I first registered the codefix.net domain on August 22, 2003– eight days after the Great North American Blackout; however, wondering how people lived without electricity and meeting my Brooklyn neighbors weren’t the only things going on back then. Work as a Linux consultant was just starting to become steady, but incorporation was more than a year away and I was still moonlighting as a photographer.Later that year, Red Hat made waves by announcing that they would discontinue support for their (free as in beer) non-enterprise Linux distributions. Fortunately Open Source projects are particularly well suited for stepping in when another has dropped the torch; in this case, there were even a couple new contenders: Fedora and Gentoo. Fedora was Red Hat’s consolation prize to the Open Source community and early versions were not impressive; Gentoo, on the other hand, seemed like a genuine revolution in the Linux world. (more…)
The Ultimate Backpack July 7, 2006
Posted by Garrison in Essays, Reviews.add a comment
A funny thing happened in Chicago, I was there for YAPC:NA and avoided having to check luggage at the airport by cramming everything I would need into a garden variety nylon backpack. On the last day of the conference, I noticed that my backpack had torn at the seam near it’s laptop compartment. Noting the irony of circumstance (Perl is known as “the duct tape of the Internet”), I went off in search of some duct tape to keep my newly ventilated bag together. Naturally the duct tape worked, my makeshift repair even survived an airport search, but I still needed a new bag. (NB: Individually wrapped Lactaid pills can set off metal detectors). (more…)
Vim, lately? June 5, 2006
Posted by Garrison in Essays.add a comment
As I write this, Vim 7 is making waves as the next great thing in Open Source software; although it’s not yet available in most package management systems. Fortunately, Vim is easy to compile from source. I used the following to compile the source on my Ubuntu laptop:
sudo apt-get build-dep vim-gtk (more…)
sudo aptitude install xlibs-dev
svn co https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vim/vim7
cd vim7
./configure --enable-gui --enable-perlinterp
--with-compiledby='Codefix Consulting <garrison@codefix.net>'
make && sudo make install
