Hi:

This is the website for Owen Carter, a British guy who has been living in Amsterdam for the last 11 years.

I'm afraid there is nothing earth-shattering here, no solutions for World Peace, no cures for peoples ills.. Just a few of my photos and ramblings.
Posts

Fedora15 and Gnome3

June 10th, 2011 |

I’ve been running Fedora15 for a couple of weeks on my work computer; and I have to say I’m loving Gnome3.. lots of frustration when switching over, it’s not a traditional desktop interface.. much more radical than, say, Windows7. But a bit of perserverence and I’m starting to really get into how it works. But I cant wait for Gnome3.1, and I miss my screensaver :-)

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Link:

May 18th, 2011 |

Gotta Secret?

Them | | No comments

Spinnaker

April 20th, 2011 |

Ghosting down the Gaasperplas with a spinnaker and no wind..

The sailseason has begun again, on Saturday we had a day of putting boats in the water at the sailing club; Coppelia went back in of course and is still making me smile, I did not do much to her this winter; only a few bits that are easier with her out of the water and some stuff up on the mast. I plan to work inside her in the better weather; plans include a small electrics system, new cushions and a general cleanup and rearrangement of storage etc.

Last night I got the spinnaker flying on her for the first time since I was sailing her almost 20 years ago.. It still flies and works just fine; if only I had had a bit more wind I would not have had to mostly paddle her back to berth.. :-) I want to practice with the spinny because this year I hope to race her in the club series.

Life | , | No comments

He’s not a Banker…

March 11th, 2011 |

…he’s a very naughty boy.

Or maybe there is something you should know :-)

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Thinking dreamily of Barbera

January 12th, 2011 |

erk: C0 CE FE 84 C2 27 F7 5B D0 7A 7E B8 46 50 9F 93 B2 38 E7 70 DA CB 9F F4 A3 88 F8 12 48 2B E2 1B
riv: 47 EE 74 54 E4 77 4C C9 B8 96 0C 7B 59 F4 C1 4D
pub: C2 D4 AA F3 19 35 50 19 AF 99 D4 4E 2B 58 CA 29 25 2C 89 12 3D 11 D6 21 8F 40 B1 38 CA B2 9B 71 01 F3 AE B7 2A 97 50 19
R: 80 6E 07 8F A1 52 97 90 CE 1A AE 02 BA DD 6F AA A6 AF 74 17
n: E1 3A 7E BC 3A CC EB 1C B5 6C C8 60 FC AB DB 6A 04 8C 55 E1
K: BA 90 55 91 68 61 B9 77 ED CB ED 92 00 50 92 F6 6C 7A 3D 8D
Da: C5 B2 BF A1 A4 13 DD 16 F2 6D 31 C0 F2 ED 47 20 DC FB 06 70
…. yeah, that worked huh?

Them | | No comments

ToyTime

January 5th, 2011 |
My New Tablet PC

Toys for Boys

My cool new toy; An android tablet..

I went out and got myself a POV Mobii Tablet, 10′ screen, running Android on a very efficient but fast Nvidia TegraII chipset. It’s the perfect antidote to the iPad.

I’ve had it a week now and I am very impressed; it is fast, responsive, very portable and has excellent battery life (the screen backlight is the killer in this, keep it on minimum and I double my runtime.. which shows how efficient the rest of the machine is). Android is working well, although some dialogues and applications still betray the fact it was designed for small screen devices. I did a bit of work to get the Android 2.3 virtual keyboard; and flash running on it (actually all I did was hunt for and download down the relevant installers and double-click them) plus a few apps and a tweak that lets me run the ‘proper’ Android marketplace as well as the POV supplied one (which is not so good). Wifi is good once connected, but it can be slow connecting when I have changed locations.

It ships with Android 2.2, but is ‘rooted’ as supplied, so I can replace key OS elements without having to hack it first. I am sure that I’ll be able to get the full Android 2.3 release on it eventually; and since the Galaxy tablet runs the same screen resolution (but in a 7′ form factor) and there are many 10′ android tablets in the pipeline, I’m sure that the UI experience is just going to get better. Also a hacking community is already building around it, and it’s ‘badge cousin’ the Advent Vega tablet sold in the UK.

Apple fanbois please note: 1) I have multiple application markets on this (choice!) 2) It has a Standard USB port, I can plug a memorystick, or even a USB disk into it. 3) It has a bigger screen than the iPad.. 4) It has a HDMI port and can play full HD content (Nvidia Graphics.) 5) It plays Flash, Flash based websites simply work. (this is currently a hack, I installed the FlashPlayer beta myself; advantages of an open system!), an ‘official’ flash player is due later this month. 6) It has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.

Close up of the ports on the POV Mobii.This site being displayed on the POV Mobii.


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Quote of the day

December 10th, 2010 |

“Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.”

– Henry Spencer

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HaHaHa

December 7th, 2010 |
“It is dispiriting and upsetting for anyone who cares about the American tradition of a free press to see Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton and Robert Gibbs turn into H.R. Haldeman, John Erlichman and John Dean. We can only pray that we won’t soon be hit with secret White House tapes of Obama drinking scotch and slurring his words while calling Assange bad names.”

- David Samuels in The Atlantic

Them | , , | No comments

Note for everybody else…

December 7th, 2010 |

http://213.251.145.96/

Them | | No comments

Note to self…

November 18th, 2010 |

xkcd: Duty Calls

I really should try harder to remember this..

Embedded courtesy of XKCD.com and the beauty of their Licence.

Life, Them | | No comments

Bedroom Companions.

November 15th, 2010 |

Five of my goldfish in a tank, all together and stareign out of the glass.

Five fish in a heap

Current state of play with the Goldfish; all five are now in my tank at home, the tank at the College is full of White Cloud Minnows. Kali (the big fish with the white face) is behaving much better now she has more space and four companions; when she was with just one companion in a small tank she half-killed the other fish. I’m watching closely to make sure this does not start again..

I have a little video of them here..goldfish-Nov2010. :-)

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Season End

November 11th, 2010 |
Coppelia moored at the lake in Gaasperplas

Coppelia at her Mooring

I recently joined the sailing club near where I live, it lets me keep Coppelia on the Gaasperplas; I can just cycle down there and sail her when I want to. I managed to do that pretty much every weekend recently; had some great sails learning the lake (it’s pretty small really) and more about how Coppelia herself is working.

Last weekend we got the boats out of the water; end of the season and no more sailing until Spring for me. Just lots of little repairs to do on her!

Life | , | No comments
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