These commands work on Ubuntu Linux 9.04 Jaunty (with Adobe’s flash plugin) and Google Chrome (NOT chromium!) as of July 26, 2009 or so:
$ sudo mkdir /opt/google/chrome/plugins
$ cd /opt/google/chrome/plugins
$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/adobe-flashplugin/libflashplayer.so libflashplayer.so
Then you have to manually start chrome with this command switch (or edit the menu properties).
$ google-chrome --enable-plugins &
Tada!
As a long time Linux user, I was disheartened to find getting a reasonable level of performance would be so much work. And would defy the old saw that Linux runs great in less memory than Windows.
This is a q&e summary of my experiences with Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) Desktop, and the various performance related issues that have dogged me to this day. Actually, some of these problems date back to 8.04, and were radically more pronounced on 8.10 which was almost unusable for me. Ubuntu Desktop 8.10 sucked OUT LOUD. At least from a Desktop performance perspective.
Update 2009-12-30: I have belatedly upgraded to 9.10, and my first, early impressions are that it is much improved. Probably due to improvements in the Intel video code.
Update 2010-02-12: Bit the bullet and upgraded to 4G RAM and nVidia graphics. Life is good now. The lesson seems to be that 1G is not enough for full time Ubuntu usage.
I hired Bradley Mills of “Mills Remodeling” to replace a roof that had suffered storm damage. The roof had not leaked or had previous problems.
Bradley seems like a nice enough, hard working young guy. He is from Bardstown, KY though does most of his work in Louisville, KY. He completed the work for me on time, and was paid the agreed to amount. The house itself is rental property. Several months later, the tenants called me with the news that the ceiling in the living room at collapsed. Sure enough, it had. A roof leak had brought it crumbling down in a big pile on top of their furniture. There was also damage in 2 other rooms.
I contacted Bradley Mills (its more of a one man show than a real business). He was courteous and said he would look into it. Having not heard anything in a week or so, I called him back. He agreed to meet me there. He looked at the roof and the damage inside and agreed that the damage was due to leaks. He said he would care take of them and the resulting damage. That is the last I heard from him. Bottom line, the roof was poorly done, and defective and Bradley Mills refuses to this day to do anything about it. In fact, he refused to accept any phone calls from me at all. Attempts to contact him through other means, were unanswered as well. He had disappeared totally. A black hole of a business operation!
Read more…
“Open Source” is one of those buzzwords that probably doesn’t matter much to most people. But its our bread and butter. We use Open Source products to run our servers. We use it to build and manage websites. We use it for hosting, marketing campaigns, and internal business applications. And its not just us. Much of the Internet is built with Open Source products. Google for instance, is built on Linux, an “Open Source” operating system. Its worked out OK for those guys. And Apache, an Open Source web server, has been the #1 web server on the planet since 1996 (based on Netcraft web surveys), despite Microsoft really working to flex its muscles in the server realm. Apache has succeeded because the Apache Foundation produces a first rate product, that is fast, featureful and robust. Firefox, the web browser, is something that possibly resonates with more people. Its Open Source too.
OK, Open Source matters to us, but why should it matter to our clients? Read more…
This is really one of those rags-to-riches, American success stories. To get to the beginning of the story, let’s start at the end, and then march backwards. First, some family history …
My mother is Laura Bullitt Burgiss,
whose father was Hugh Kennedy Bullitt,
whose mother was Heloise Kennedy Bullitt 2,
whose mother was Anne White Kennedy,
whose father was Maunsel White,
and the guy that invented Tabasco Sauce.
I guess that makes him not granddad, but great-great-great-grandad.
Maunsel was born in Tipperary, Ireland in 1784. Orphaned at the age of 13, he emigrated to the “colonies” in the late 1700’s, settling first in Louisville, Ky. where he worked as a clerk in the shipping industry. Commerce was primarily river based goods at that time, and eventually he relocated down-river to New Orleans. He quickly did quite well for himself in various business ventures, becoming wealthy, eventually owning several plantations, including the “Deer Range” plantation (near New Orleans), where he hosted such notables as Andrew Jackson, and Lady Wilde (Oscar’s mom). By the time of the War of 1812 he was well established, captained and financed the “Lousiana Blues” regiment.
The principal crop of his plantations was sugar cane, but Maunsel dabbled in various other horticultural interests, including a failed attempt at marketing a fermented beverage made from oranges. He also had a taste for peppers.
A sea-captain friend, who traveled the Caribbean, returned one day with a handful of pepper seeds from the “Tobasco” region of Mexico, which were unknown in Louisiana at that time. Maunsel began cultivating these peppers. As was the custom of the day, these were called “Tabasco” peppers (variously spelled “Tobasco”) for their native region.
The traditional method of preserving peppers was to dry them. Tabasco peppers are unusually oily, and Maunsel found they did not dry well in the heat and humidity of south Louisiana. Not to give in easily, he experimented with sauces made from the peppers which he bottled, and was known to give freely as gifts to friends and neighbors. He eventually settled on a vinegar based sauce. “Maunsel White’s Tabasco Sauce”, as it was known in its day, was well known in the area prior to 1850, and the successful marketing of THE TABASCO® Sauce in the late 1860’s by the McIlhenny family of nearby Avery Island, Louisiana.
The McIlhenny family (founders of THE Tabasco Sauce) were neighbors and acquaintances of Maunsel White, and undoubtedly knew of his sauce, which pre-dated their own concoction (despite their apparent denials). Though well known locally, Maunsel never marketed his own Tabasco sauce. Family members did market several sauces bearing his name after his death. He died well before the commercialization of the product that he inspired.
Hal Burgiss
