Darragh Ó Héiligh blog and accessibility guides

Remember a while ago while testing Ubuntu 8.04; I spoke about the problems that it had introduced for users of the Gnome assistive technologies? Well, I was really relieved to see that the released version seems to install without any problems and Orca, the screen reader for Gnome worked great. Without this screen reader, I would have had to depend on sighted assistance during every installation of the product. That is something that I find completely unacceptable so you can imagine my excitement when it came up talking as it should.

Before explaining the problem that now exists with Ubuntu 8.0, I should explain a bit about how Linux" systems control access to system administration components.

When you break it down to its simplest form, Linux" has two levels of permissions.  Standard user and root.  Standard users are the normal every day accounts used by everyone.  Root is the account used by administrators.  Processes launched by a user can be manipulated by the root user however processes launched by root are accessible to other administrators but in general; they are not accessible by processes running at the user level.  Therefore, if you run an administrative application for doing something like adding or removing software sources and you have Orca running as normal, Orca will not be able to read the Installation sources application.  For some reason though, when Orca is run as root, it will not access applications run at a user level.  That’s something that can be explained but it takes a bit more thought so I’ll leave it for now.

The problem is that Orca is not reading these administrative windows. I should be able to unload Orca, change to the root user then relaunch the screen reader again before starting the administrative tool however that doesn’t work.  The tool launches without any issue however Orca does not read it. 

This is a particularly critical flaw in my opinion and it is one that has really turned me off using this version of the distribution.  I think I’ll stick with 7.11 for the moment.

Nice weather really brings out the crazies doesn’t it? Yesterday I was walking back from work when three random strangers stopped me to talk to me about the weather, my dog and the traffic in Dublin city. 

Now, One, I was in my own little world, happily mulling the thought’s of finishing work and having the night to take it easy after a very difficult day, two, I was kind of tired.  I’d had one of those days that seems to drain you completely and three; I was just not in the mood to talk to random strangers about shit.

While enjoying the sun shining on my face walking down the road, some man stopped me to talk about my dog.  He said something like: “Lovely dog isn’t he? “  I replied yeah,  it’s a fabulous evening.  I hope we have more of it.  I was trying to be friendly without showing him that I’d not really been listening to him.  He stopped and repeated his greeting.  I think he was a bit offended that I grunted in agreement and kept walking.

The second man said to me: “Nice day isn’t it?” I replied, yeah.  He’s a lovely dog.  Hay, I’d only walked around the corner when the second man started talking to me and my brain was still thinking about my confusion over the last brief conversation.   The second fella completely took me by surprise!  Still intent on getting home though I purposefully continued walking. 

There’s a busy crossing on one of the roads I need to pass through on my way.  Last night they took a few minutes to change.  During that time though another man started to moan to me about the traffic and how that in his day things were much better because there wasn’t as much noise, pollution or traffic related deaths.  I don’t think he was very impressed when I responded by saying that there wasn’t as much traffic, noise, pollution or deaths on the roads when he was younger but then again, there wasn’t much money, opportunity or equality either so I’d personally take the slight disadvantage caused by increased traffic on the roads. I was ready that time!  I actually participated in a conversation properly!  I’m very proud of my self!

Unbelievable.  I must have looked very approachable yesterday.  Even though I just wanted to tell them all to fuck off and leave me alone. I’m a very intolerant person aren’t I?

Ah we all have our problems.

Ok.  I’ve not blogged properly in a good while so I’ll try to do some updating in this post.

Firstly, the new job is going really well.  I’m basically one of seven system admins supporting the houses of the Oireachtas.  That means that on a daily basis, I solve problems from locked out log ins, to Lotus Notes ID problems to fixing the air conditioning in a server room because the air humidity is too high to configuring remote RAS solutions for remote offices.  It’s not all sitting at a desk either.  There’s plenty of freedom to access a machine remotely or walk to someone’s office and fix it directly.  It’s a really nice change.  In one way its help desk department but in another way there’s so much exposure to server equipment and so much flexibility to move about that it’s completely different.

I’ve had a few very difficult challenges here though.  Accessibility to some of the systems is a real problem.  For example, VNC is used for remote access but VNC will not work with my screen reader.  Even if I could get VNC to relay the sound from the remote PC to the local computer I’d be happy enough but as it stands it gives me absolutely nothing.  It’s making my job very difficult.  Another problem I’m having is because I do so much with the servers, I need to use VNC or remote desktop.  As again I need to use Jaws, all the servers in the Oireachtas first need to be restarted.  This is an obvious problem.  There is a restart schedule but waiting for it is not exactly nice when there are things that you must therefore hand over to someone else.  I hate depending on people.  Especially when it’s so crucial to very clearly illustrate my independence and ability to do everything that this job requires.  The people I’m working with are fantastic however I still need to be on my guard.  The last problem that’s worth mentioning is when accessing servers on site.  I.e, when I’m in front of the terminal in one of the server rooms.  How do I get access to it?  There’s obviously no sound output.  They don’t need it.  Plus, windows server operating systems disable sound output by default!  Plus, if one goes down, how do I read the bios and other screens that are shown before Windows starts?  I’ll not beat around the bush.  These accessibility problems are going to be very hard to get over.  If I can’t get over them I hope my new employer isn’t going to take it badly.

Still though, although this is something that is constantly at the back of my mind, it’s not hampered me much yet.  I’m really enjoying the work and I’m constantly learning.

Speaking of learning, I installed Windows Small Business Server 2003 at home during the weekend.  It’s possibly going to replace my Linux" server running OpenSuSE 10.3.  I never thought I’d actually replace that Linux" server.  It’s still running with only using 3.4GB of disk space and the processor performance never jumps above ten per cent.  That’s very impressive considering everything its doing.  But, in saying that, the Windows server integrates everything on the network so well that it’s really hard to justify using Linux" again.  I was actually thinking of connecting the Windows and Linux" servers to make some kind of cross platform type domain system but I’ve not really found any kind of need for this yet.  Even if there’s not a need but something that could be interesting I’d still do it but there’s just nothing that comes to mind at the moment.  Any ideas?

Anyway, the installation and configuration of the Windows server basically took me 5 hours in total.  That included installing the operating system, configuring DNS and the domain, setting up exchange, configuring the pop3 connector, setting up Stunnel and OpenSSL. The server is currently acting as the networks DHCP, DNS, Domain, Mail, Web, FTP and soon, Antivirus and Proxy server. That has all been done with very limited knowledge.  I know a bit about Windows Server but after yesterday I know realise just how much I need to learn.   I really want to do more with group policies and the GPO.  Exchange is another beast I want to tackle too.  I think it has a lot of power and it would be really good to try to pull more out of it.  At least now though, with it up and running at home I have the resource there to use. 

Oh, on the Linux" front, I’ve also updated to Ubuntu 8.04.  Give it a test drive.  You’ll be really impressed! You can even install it using windows without repartitioning!  I think this is a really excellent way for new users to get started.  With the installer, you can also enable accessibility so when you boot into Ubuntu, it will come up talking right away.  I’ve had a few problems with Ubuntu’s accessibility of administration tools but I’ll do some more testing before I write about that further. 

In the next two to three weeks, I need to do a few more audio reviews and tutorials for Ubuntu and Fedora.  I just need to set the equipment up at home again.

Ah, speaking of home, that brings me nicely onto my last topic for this morning.  The house is coming on well.  I’m *Still* waiting on Emma to resize those pictures she has but I’m sure she’ll get around to it eventually. We’ve been in the house two weeks now.  The floor in the living room has now been put down and the walls have been painted.  Once I get the skirting boards sprayed and lacquered I’ll get someone to put them down so we can start moving in furniture.  Who knows, all going well that will happen some time this week.  However, my Granny is kind of unwell at the moment and was in hospital yesterday so depending on how things are going, I might not be in a position to get much done at all this week. Not that she’s that bad.  She’s got an infection as a result of an operation she had about a month ago.  It’s just that I’d say my mother will be kind of busy and she’s coordinating the preparation of the man who’ll spray the skirting boards.

The bedroom is almost done.  There’s just one more thing for me to do and I need to get around to it soon.  I need to paint the wardrobe doors.  Yes people, you heard it right.  I’ll be painting the doors.  It’s not that shocking really.  Doors are easy enough.  Just follow the grain of the wood and your grand.  Because their smaller than a wall, obviously, it’s not really possible to loose track of where you painted last.  Unless you get distracted.  I’ve restored the wardrobe by sanding it down and painting it to match the room.  It’s a built in wardrobe that hopefully will only be needed for a few years but from what I gather, now that it’s been painted and cleaned up it looks well so who knows.  Maybe it will do for a while.

The kitchen, as I said the last time is now fully tiled.  We just need to under coat it.  Emma’s sowing room has been under coated and probably needs one more coat to get it read for the colour.  I also need to get someone to fit that floor.

There’s a bit to do yet but we’re getting there. It’s just a slow process when you’re working full time and the budget isn’t a bottomless pit. 

Now, that’s all for the moment.  I need to write up a document that describes a new system that was rolled out last week and I’ve a few emails to respond back to later as well.

Would you agree that for most of us, Jaws is the most important product supplied by Freedomscientific?  Although it’s not the most likeable of tools, I have to admit that it’s one of the most productive.  Yet, when you search for jaws on the www.freedomscientific.com home page, you’ll not find one word mentioning it. You’ll see stuff about the Pacmate, Magic, the Magnifiers they do, but nothing about the most used screen reader in the world.  Weird isn’t it?

We're getting close! 

My installation of Ubuntu 8.04 didn't go too well as you'll see in an earlier post but I'm still really looking forward to the released version in a few days.  I'll be surprised if they don't fix the orca related bug.

It’s Monday again.  You know, I got loads of sleep this weekend.  I was very good.  I went to bed early and got up at a reasonable hour.  Well, reasonable when compared to half five in the morning.   Yesterday I did a lot of very manual work but last night I still felt better than I had all last week as I’d finally got a chance to catch up on some much needed sleep!  Last night though, as if the universe had been waiting to conspire against me, I lay awake trying to get some sleep for the entire night!  Stupid damn brain and body.  It should sleep when I want it to!  So, today, I’m grumpy and tired and just pissed off.  But, I have to be in a fabulous mood and friendly and professional and all that kind of shit.  Ba!

On another topic, we spent the weekend filling a jumbo bin.  We’d an incredible amount of wood, junk and old furniture to get rid of so it all got chopped up and thrown into the skip.  Even the big suite of furniture that was left in the house has been broken up into small pieces and crammed in.  It took us five hours to break that thing up.  Emma and Deirdre, Emma’s mother removed the fabric while I cut up the wood and used a sledge hammer to remove the arms etc.

I’ve a bit more work to do later on when I get home this evening.  I was afraid that we may have filled the skip too much but I was told this morning that it can take much more.  So, I’m going to remove the old wood in the garden as well as the pots that they used for planting.

Oh, on Saturday afternoon I helped out with the Flag Day for Irish Guide dogs for the Blind in Drogheda.  These things are usually quite boring but it was actually enjoyable this time.  I made sure to stop as many people as I could for a change.  I’m sure some people got a bit frustrated but at the end of the day, it’s a good cause so if they’ve a problem with it they’ve got more problems than we do!

God it's been such a busy weekend I'll be glad to start the week again.

I have stuff to blog about regarding the house but this post is about technology only.  I'd great plans this weekend.  I have Windows 2003 Small Business server here on CD waiting to be installed so I was looking forward to getting stuck in this weekend!  Instead though, my internet connection went down on Saturday morning for absolutely no reason.  Looks like my router took a panic attack and just decided for its own strange reasons not to work anymore.  After a lucky guess, I found out how to restore it to its factory defaults but that means of course that I have to start the configuration of it all over
again. 

Now, as you may or may not know, this set up here in the house is:  two or more CAT 5E network points in each room meeting under the stairs.  The server takes care of DHCP, I.E, providing IP addresses, mail, processing mail rules etc.  It's also the mail and FTP server and does a few other nice little things like accesses the networks firewall and all that kind of good stuff. 

Anyway, back to my internet problem.  After messing around with it for a while, I called BT to see if there was some problem in my area.  They said that it looked like I wasn't connected but they had no idea as to why this may be.  "Very helpful weren't they?" Anyway, I kept looking around but during this research my router suddenly died and wouldn't even let me ping it.  There was absolutely no reason why this would just stop all of a sudden. So, after trying to revive it, last night, I decided to restore it to factory defaults.  I found a reset button that was well recessed but that just reboots it.  By chance, I thought of holding it in for a few minutes.  Still nothing.  So, I pulled the plug for about the tenth time and bingo, it booted up into its factory defaults so I could start the long job of reconfiguring it again.

Still though, after configuring the internet, it wouldn't work.

Then, as suddenly as it stopped it started again.

Feeling absolutely thrilled, I reconnected the server to the network.  Oh, I forgot to say, I disconnected it while reconfiguring the router temporarily to decrease the complexity of the configuration at the start.  The less complicated the set up, the less complicated the solution usually.

For some reason though, the internet connection went down again.  No, it wasn't the server causing the problem.  I was checking the status of the internet via the telnet connection to the router.

I set up one port in my computer room to bypass the server while I was trying to configure the router so I could disable different daemons on the Linux" machine during the process.

After more messing around, the internet connections seems to have stabilized.  I'm not certain if this is due to my troubleshooting or some strange BT fandom. Either way, it's been up for at least twenty minutes now and hopefully it will stay that way. 
Problem was though at the end that the machine connected to the direct connection to the router with a static IP and DNS entries could ping out to the Internet but the server still couldn't. 

I checked the network settings on the server to find that there were actually static DNS servers defined for the network card that was facing the Internet.  I set one DNS address to point to the router and one to itself because I want client PC's to access the server internally without typing the IP address for mail etc.

That's seems to have done it for the moment.  I've gone around in circles twice or more this weekend trying to solve that blasted problem.  I've still no idea how it started! Stupid BT just doesn’t have a clue either.  Their absolutely no use. 

Now, I'm going for a pint.  Want to join me?  After the weekend I've just had, I need one!

I’m a tad worried about my dog today.  He’s been a bit slow and he yelped this morning.  I think his hips are at him again unfortunately.  On the up side though, I’ve finally taken his bole and stuff into work so at least he’s got water during the day. 

Thank god it’s the weekend.  I’m planning to spend as much time in bed as I possibly can.  I think I’ve been up early every day for the lat two months and now I’m just totally exhausted. What I’d really love to do is go to Dundalk tomorrow night, play some music, drink a few pints and then go home and sleep my brains out for ages.  But, the house is causing a drag on my finances so there’s no going out for me for a while yet.

No other plans for the weekend really, I’m standing around in Drogheda tomorrow afternoon helping to raise money for Irish guide dogs. Other than that, I’m hoping to install windows Small Business 2003 premium onto the server at home so I can mess around with it.

I’m doing lodes but just stuff that I can’t really write about.

Still enjoying work here at the moment.  Even after the third day!  Madness isn’t it?  Oh, actually, today is Thursday isn’t it?  So, actually after four days!  That’s how fast this week is flying.  I love this part of the city.  I’m near absolutely everything, I sleep on the train going to work and coming home, I take the dog for a long walk in Stephens green every day and I’m learning about a lot of different technology some of which I’ve wanted to get my hands on for ages!  I think this is going to be very good.

I met a friend for lunch today too.  Well, actually, we just strolled around the green talking about anything and everything but it was nice to get away from work and have someone other than the dog to talk to while wandering around. 

Oh, the people in the office are very sound as well.  I’m liking the professional attitude in the OIREACHTAS but in this office, although professional, everyone is really friendly.  There’s a real air of participation.

Oh, I’ve nine minutes left.  For me to get the earlier train home I really need to be out of here dead on the dot of five.  Talk to you soon then.

The builder is now officially finished working in the house.  For the first time since we bought it, the place is actually free of outsiders.  It is our space!  It is funny.  It’s been almost six months now that we’ve been living in different people’s houses.  It’s going to take some getting use to having our own space again.  I’m really hoping to have everything moved in this weekend.  I know it’s going to take more time before it’s all organized but if the living room is organized by Saturday or Sunday I’ll be really happy.  I’ve still no idea how it’s going to happen though considering it’s not painted yet and there’s no floor down.  Oh, on Saturday, to make things a bit more interesting, I’ve been asked to meet the Drogheda branch of Guide dogs for the blind in the centre of the town for 12 o clock.  That will take a lot of the day from me.  I can only hope that I get a lot done on Friday.  Depending on what I owe the builder later today, we’ll be getting a jumbo bin to take the rubbish away.  That kind of needs to go before we start bringing more into the house for obvious reasons.

Ok, I’m not going to write much at the moment.  I’m just finishing up my lunch break.  I want to do some testing for the rest of the afternoon.

I’ve not written as much as I should have in the last few days.   Over the past week and a half I‘ve done so much that it's totally impossible to keep track of it all.  You see, that’s what happens when I blog so regularly but get too busy to blog for a while.  When I’m no longer so busy, I've absolutely no idea where to even start!

Ok.  Well, as you may know, on Friday the 4th of April, I left my old job in Stream after four long years of service.  I took a week off to work on the house and also to help break my brain away from thinking about Stream.  Would you actually believe that I still checked my Novell email at the start of last week and assigned cases?  Mainly because I wanted to make sure that the team I left behind were ok.

So, you've seen the pictures from the week before last so as a few people have said; we had a hell of a lot left to do.  Every day last week right from Saturday the 5th to Sunday the 13th we spent every day in the house working to get it finished.  Most days were thirteen and fourteen hours long.  Tuesday actually, we left the house at 1AM but on the way back to my parent’s house we got stopped by the Guards.  They have a right to stop anyone at a whim with absolutely no reason to just check that their not up to anything dodgy and to also ensure they have up to date tax and insurance.  Following on from that bit of news actually, Before the Guard left us when he'd finished checking Emma’s licence, I asked him for a reason.  He seemed surprised that I wanted to know!  Do they really think they are feared by the entire population?  Don't get me wrong.  I have great respect and admiration for the Guards in Ireland.  I think they do a great job under terrible conditions.  But I think it's very important to remember that at the end of the day, they are public servants.  They are there to serve us.  We should not be afraid of them unless we're doing something wrong.  Therefore, even if it is their right to stop a driver, I strongly believe that it is our responsibility to enquire as to why we have been stopped.  You need to feel that you are just as important as the person standing over your car.  Empower yourself to question those who think they are in authority.  Authority is something to be respected but certainly not feared!

So, for the rest of the week things have gone reasonably smoothly.  We got a huge amount done with the house.  Pipes were buried below the floor, the floor in the extension was repaired, the walls have been touched up with plaster so their now all suitable for painting, the kitchen floor and wall has been tiled, the fridge and cooker are now connected and operational, the wooden floor has been put down in the bedroom, the carpet has been laid in my computer room, we've painted a lot of the rooms and Emma has independently wired the house with phone points.  As I said in an earlier post, the phone points that were there when we bought the house were not reliable so the house needed to be rewired.  It's better now though.  We've now got phone points in much more suitable locations.  Oh, we also got the sky television service installed as well.

Anything else I can think of? Hmmmmmm. not at the moment, but it's later than I thought so I'll possibly think of more tomorrow.  Remember I wanted to get some pictures to show you?  I'm still waiting on Emma to convert them to more reasonable sizes so I can put them up on the blog.  Hopefully we'll have them in a few days.  Emma, get the hint?  Only kidding.

Oh, I started my new job on Monday working with the Oireachtas through Fujitsu Siemens.  I would describe it, but you'd never believe me.  The amount of technology I'm now working with and the control I have is just astounding compared to that I had in Stream.  Plus,   I've signed a lot of non disclosure agreements I'm slightly nervous about saying too much.

That's all for now folks.  I'm sorry it's taken so long to update you.  But I'll try to write a bit more for the rest of the week.  Now, off to send this through the spell checker to see how many mistakes I've made tonight.  I'm tired!  I can’t help it!

I think this is definitly important enough to deserve a mention on my small corner of the WWW.

Blacknight, a hosting and colocation provider in Ireland are in the process of launching a number of really cool new services.  Or so it says on the official Blacknight blog anyway...

The latest service they have announced is VPS.  Virtual Private Servers.  Basically this is a server that you have full control over.  If you have custom requirements that are not met by a shared server but you don't have the money for a dedicated box then in my opinion this is probably the best way to go.   For me, it's great.  If they eventually provide an OpenSuSE installation it could easily take over the work that my home server is doing.  I.e, it could act as my email and web server while still giving me the control that I want.  Go learn more about it over at http://www.blacknightvps.com/

You know what happens if you don’t blog in a few days?  Too much happens to keep track of. 

Well, firstly, on Saturday I went to my god Childs confirmation.  Her name is Sarah and she’s just the coolest little person I know.  There were fifty people making their confirmation along with her so as I was at the back of the church, I easily crept out a few times to grab some air and let the dog water the plants on the church lawn.  I’m a very caring guide dog owner aren’t I?  Ah, it was just too hot in there and I have to admit, I’m not the most religious person in the world and a mass that goes on longer than 5 seconds bores me.  I’m the same while in training, I tune in for the first few minutes but unless there’s some practical application I just find it incredibly boring!

The mass was the dull part though.  Later that night I went out for a meal with her family, her god mother and her boyfriend and a few other people that I didn’t really know at the start.  I had planned on not even going but I was kind of pressured into going.  If I didn’t I’d have felt guilty.  Instead of coming home at half eight / nine as I’d expected though it ended up being one of those crazy nights that you can only have every once in a while.  I drank over twice as much as I would ordinarily have and I really felt the effects of it.  Even before leaving the restaurant, I knew that I was on a downward slope.  I knew that I should go home but no, the people I was with were having none of it and I was told that I had to go out to a local pub for another while.  You know what happens after that.  One turns into three.  That was after the three I’d had in the restaurant!  After the pub I was in flying form so we adjourned to a night club in Drogheda called fusion.  This place is absolutely nuts!  It’s huge!  I’d been there a few years ago but now it’s completely different!  Absolutely amazing!  The noise in this place would send you sideways!   Even when you’re sober!  To say I was completely disorientated is an understatement!  I’ve been able to get around no problem in any nightclub with no problems only using the cane but that place had me baffled.  Once I tried to go off on my own but the music had me confused.  So much so that I walked in a circle back to the people I was with without even knowing it.  It wasn’t until someone grabbed my arm and pulled me back over that I’d any kind of clue as to where I was!  I actually thought they’d moved at first.  Believe me, it’s not nice experience and one that I’ll be in no hurry to repeat.  I still think though that although I was quite .......... intoxicated, I really wasn’t bad enough to send my senses crazy like that. It was so loud that when I went outside to get some oxygen, things I listened to sounded like they were coming through someone else’s ears!  Weird experience let me tell you.  Anyway, shortly afterword I decided that I’d had enough so made my way home.  See?  I got back here with no problems using the cane after a hell of a lot of alcohol so I really do think it was just the crazy level they had that music at that disorientated me.

Strangely enough, when I woke yesterday morning, my stomach wasn’t at me at all!  That’s even after the additional bulmers I drank in the club!  I really don’t know how I was able to function yesterday.

Anyway, that was my eventful weekend in a nutshell.  Of course, a few other thing happened blah blah blah blah but you don’t really want to hear about that stuff. 

Back over to the house though, this week as I said before I have time off while changing to the new job primarily to work on the house.   Emma’s off too as she’s working in there with me.  Today the man who built our kitchen was there to fit it.  I had a few things for him to change and at times I think he was very close to the stage of killing me with his hammer but he kept his cool and I’m really impressed with how well he’s adapting.  One thing though is that he’s not really taken the initiative to ask me when he’s not sure about something. I’ve also had a few complaints about how he’s made things easier on himself but I let him away with one major part of the construction where I really believe he could have done better so as a result I’m pushing more comprimization from him so any little thing that I want changed on his design is done as we go along.  I’m a hard person to work for as anyone who has worked with me will attest to.  However, I’m fair.  I’m a perfectionist.  I like people to set expectations and meet them and if possible even exceed them.  In return I’ll do the same.  The fella doing the kitchen has learned that quickly which is admirable.

So, the kitchen is almost in, the plasterer has been touching up the walls so that their more suitable for painting, the Plummer has been in burying the pipes in one of the rooms and for the day I’ve been doing loads of stuff.  Mainly clearing rubble from the front of the house.  There was an unbelievable amount of rubble from the fire place, creating the channels in the walls for pipes and cabling, digging channels in the floor for the gas pipes and in some places increasing the door sizes internally.   Oh, there was also some ready mix concrete mistakenly pored onto of the rubble which hardened over the last few weeks so I had to use some persuasion to loosen that up a bit.  Thanks to the “Persuasion”, I was also able to break up some of the fireplace so I could get it into the trailer.

That’s all for now.  You know, I’m glad I’m in the house this week.  Because I’m there, I’m providing a much more significant say as to how things should be done.  I think that’s critical now that we’re well and truly into the reconstruction stage and away from the destruction.

I'd love to get a few pictures actually.  I'll try to do that tomorrow.

I’m nearly there now.  I’m still very nervous but I suppose as I said before, before every beginning you have to have an end.  It will feel a bit weird leaving this place but although I’ve had some great discussions with managers here today, I really believe that it’s just the right time to move on.  The problems that I’ve encountered here and the barriers that I’ve encountered are something that are not easily forgotten.

Anyway, I’m going to keep this short.  I’m heading to meet Bill haneman later tonight.  He’s made a new bag for my Úilléann pipes so I’m going over to collect it.  No celebratory alcohol for me!  Not with so much to do this weekend and next week.

I’ve already set it up so that when I shut down my machine it will remove everything from the disk and delete the partition so all my private passwords etc will be safe. 

I think I’m about set now.

A lot is happening with the house at the moment but even though it might not seem it from the pictures, we're almost there!

One of my main requests was to run network cable around to a few of the rooms in the house. It all gathers under the stairs where the server will run. Very cool.

To make cake, you need to crack eggs. Here is where the electrician has dug out the trenches for the wires.

Like the last picture, the wholes are created but not filled yet.

This socket nearlly killed us. The previous owners had managed to screw shelves right in through an electrical conduit so when we took the shelves down we broke the connection. It sent mad big sparks everywhere on and off for three days until Toaster, a friend of mine who is an electrician could come in and fix it.

We're burying the pipes in the sowing room. The trench has been created so I just need to get a plummer in now to get rid of the pipes.

Here are the famous pipes. Their led so no one really wants to do the job. THink I have someone now though.

 As part of the modification of the house, we've removed the fire place. It will make it a bit cleaner and give us that little bit of extra space that we're always trying to get out of the kitchen.

This is Emma's favorite light. She thinks it looks really cool. I have to admit, I agree.

Again, another light fitting that Emma likes but this one is practical too. It is great for a room that needs a log of light as it has four spot lights that can be moved to different positions to provide light in different parts of the room.

The sockets and the switches in the living room are brushed satton. I love the feel of them and I hear they look quite good too.

Our door handles are very modern aren't they? I wasn't sure what to make of them at first but their growing on me.

This is our new condencing gass boiler. I must say, I'm very impressed. It's really quiet and aside from the size of the thing is will do nicely. The plummer was very professional as well. I'd recommend him to anyone.

We've new windows in the entire house now. Brown wood effect at the front to match the look of the street and modern white in the back. Looks good from what I'm told. I'm happy with them too. They get rid of all the outside noise. Well, almost all of it. Oh, the new radiator is in that picture too.

These doors aren't sprayed or yet so their a natural color but I'll get to that next week. It won't take long.

That's it for now. What do you think! There's a lot happening isn't there?

It’s my last day working with Stream.  When I started here there were just under forty full time employees.  Now, almost four years later, there are a total of three hundred and thirty!  That says a lot for their success doesn’t it?  When I started of course, they weren’t called Stream.  They were called ECE.  ECE actually bought Stream back in 2004 and merged to be the one company.  Unusual for such a small company to buy a huge company like Stream however they did it and made a success of it too!

Earlier this morning, I had my exit interview.  I don’t think I need to say that it was far from positive.  I feel sorry for the HR representative that held the interview as she has only been in the company for about six weeks.  So, she had no way of knowing or understanding the shit that I’ve had to put up with here over the last few years.  I hope after that meeting though that she will.

At the least, I hope she speaks to the head of HR about it so that my dissatisfaction over how things have been handled here is known across all levels of management.

That’s enough negativity though.  I’m almost finished here.  The stupid policies that have driven me crazy are over.  For a short while.  Lets see what policies FS have.b

Enabling all the usual repositories and updating the entire system using apt-get has made no obvious difference to the issue I reported in my previous post.  Orca is still unable to provide access to applications that require higher privlidges i.e, applications that must be run as root / super user. I even updated to the latest Orca 2.22 version from SVN. Still nothing has really changed.  I'm going to play around with the rest of the system though in a while to see if there are any major improvements.  I do like that Firefox beta 4 is included in this version of Ubuntu though.  It's nice not to have to go hunting for the url to the nightly build for a change after installing a fresh version.

Now, for my next decision:  Last time, just for something to do, I configured the Windows vista boot loader to provide the choice to boot either windows or Linux". This time, obviously, when I installed Ubuntu, the boot loader has returned to grub.  Mainly, because I didn't bother not selecting it to install onto /dev/sdb during the installation so by default, it installed onto the first sector of the primary drive. I've just reconfigured the menu.lst for grub to change the options to suit me a bit so really, I could live with either grub or the windows boot loader at the moment.  I think I'll look at ways of tweeking grub for a bit of entertainment and stick with that at the moment.  In comparason, the windows boot loader is very simple and doesn't provide a lot of functionality.  It would be cool if I could get grub to look different or make a sound. 

I use to be able to configure lilo, the boot loader that was used primarily in Linux" before Grub took the lead to beep when I arrowed over certain list items however I don't think that's so straight forward in Grub. 

Anyway, I'm off to play with Linux" for a while.  Talk to you soon.

The installation has completed successfully and Ubuntu 8.04 is now up and running.  That was quick wasn’t it?  In that time as well, I also took a 45 minute break, took care of an escalated case and read a bit about the new features of this latest version of the Ubuntu distribution.

The first thing that I noticed when I started the live CD was that Orca would not speak when run as root.  This meant that I didn’t have access to a screen reader during the installation.  Fortunately though, Emma read the screen for me so we kept going through to see what happened.

After the installation, I’ve found that Orca is still not working properly when it’s run as root however I’ve just run apt-get update and apt-get upgrade a moment or two ago and I was amazed at the amount of packages that need to be updated.  I suppose, that’s what you get with using a downloaded beta 3 of the ISO. Either way though, I’m happy so far.  This is probably a minor issue that will hopefully get sorted out before the released product sometime this month.

I’ll keep you posted after apt-get has finished updating the installed packages.  If that doesn’t work, I’ll download the latest 2.22 branch of orca from SVN.

The improvements in 8.04 are listed on www.ubuntu.com so I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here by listing them all.  Put it like this.  It's now using gnome 2.22 and therefore benefits from all that provides.  I read a site a few days ago that called October and April Ubuntu months.  I think that's a very accurate description.  Since I saw the changes between 7.04 and 7.10 I've really been looking forward to 8.04 to see what that had to offer.  In my opinion, Ubuntu constantly raises the bar with every release.  Don't get me wrong.  There are other distributions out there doing equally great work such as OpenSuSE, Fedora and Mandriva but Ubuntu has targeted it's self as being a really user focused and friendly distribution and I think it's doing that job very well.

I decided to update to the latest beta yesterday. Things didn't really go as planned though.  running update-manager --devel-release worked, I checked for updates, found the latest release of 8.04 and clicked upgrade.  the process started however didn't get past the first stage.  It freezes at preparing repositories. 

The same thing interestingly happened me when upgrading from 7.04 to 7.10 so I just decided to do a fresh install in the end.  That's what I'm going to do this time as well.  Mainly because no matter what happens, I prefer to do a fresh install on a machine that I rely on as heavily as I do my laptop.

This morning, I've downloaded the ISO for 8.04 Beta 3 and I'm just in the process of backing up my files before doing the fresh install.  I'll let you know how I get on.  I'll be looking at it from an accessibility perspective mainly.  Hopefully everything will install as quickly as in 7.10. 

See you on the other side.

I've been hearing some great things since Bertie stepped down yesterday.  Recrute Ireland have even jumped on it. Interesting benefits aren't they?

• Pension
• Company car & Driver
• Holidays: minimum 90 days
• Subsidised canteen/bar/tea trolley
• Bonus/Charity/Residential scheme**
• Make-up allowance

http://www.recruitireland.com/job/?jobID=10012942

Oh, if your interested in what the Make-up allowance is, take a look at a site I read on a blog earlier.

The Irish Taoiseach has, earlier today, resigned from office.  In recent months, he has been surrounded in a vale of controversy as a result of suspected tax evasion, receipt of funds from dodgy land developers and a myriad of other possible finance related offences.  After hearing the news from someone in the office, I found a story on breakingnews.ie.

Bertie Ahern is to step down as Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil on May 6th, he announced this morning.

Amid mounting pressure about his personal finances, Mr Ahern said he was proud of his political achievements but denied any wrongdoing.

Flanked by cabinet colleagues including Brian Cowen, Mary Harney, Martin Cullen, Noel Dempsey, Brian Lenihan, Mary Harney and John Gormley, Mr Ahern said
a "constant barrage of commentary" was distracting the work of Government.

He said his decision was "solely motivated by what is best for the people" and was "solely a personal decision...inspired by the desire to refocus the
political agenda". 

What a load of crap! He stepped down because he had absolutely no choice! Even his own party were turning against him! He's a bent politition. But, he's the worst type of bent polatition. He's the type that won't admit he's bent and continues to try to fool people into thinking he's trust worthy even when the proof is stacked against him. It continues though. Keep reading.

"I've been priviliged to serve my community, party and country for many years," an emotional Mr Ahern told reporters in Government Buildings.

My thirteen year old sister can fool anyone into thinking she's crying. Polititions need to be masters at fooling people. I'm sure a bit of emotion is easy enough to fake.

He said he was proud of his work on the Northern Ireland peace process, on successive social partnership agreements, on delivering a modern economy and
of Ireland's involvement in the European Union.

He also said he had "ended the myth that Fianna Fáil is incapable of sustaining a coalition government" and paid tribute to both Mr Gormley and Mary Harney.

However, the work of Government had been "distracted by my life, my lifestyle and my finances". 

Mr Ahern was set to come under pressure in Dáil this afternoon as the Opposition parties sought an explanation for evidence given to the Mahon tribunal
by his former secretary.
Never in all the time that I served in politics have I ever put my personal interest ahead of the public good  
The Opposition was due press Mr Ahern on the sterling payments lodged to his Irish Permanent building society account by Gráinne Carruth.

The tribunal is investigating claims that Mr Ahern received money from property developer Owen O'Callaghan. The claim by Tom Gilmartin has been repeatedly
denied by Mr O'Callaghan and by Mr Ahern himself. However the tribunal invetigations have thrown up questions on lodgements to Mr Ahern'spersonal accounts
in the early 1990s.

The total value of lodgements and other transactions that have to date been queried by the tribunal in its public inquiries into Mr Ahern's finances, exceeds
£452,800. The lodgements and transactions occurred between 1988 and 1997, although the vast bulk of the money was lodged in the period to 1995.

The total is the equivalent of €886,830 in today's terms, applying the consumer price index for the period 1994 to 2008. The total excludes lodgements
where the tribunal has been shown the money was transferred from one bank account to another, but includes such lodgements where neither Mr Ahern nor the
tribunal have been able to find independent confirmation as to what occurred.

Mr Ahern said he would be "comprehenisely dealing with these matters at the tribunal" and denied any wrongdoing.

"Never in all the time that I served in politics have I ever put my personal interest ahead of the public good," he added.

"I have never received a corrupt payment...I have done no wrong and wronged no one".

See what I mean? He's a master at bull shitting.

Last week, Ms Harney and Mr  Gormley said Mr Ahern needed to clarify the situation in relation to his finances.

So, there you have it, Bertie's gone. Well, he will be with any luck at the start of May.

You know the only thing wrong with all this? He shouldn't have been allowed to step down.  He should have been removed from office a long time ago.  I agree fully with the ideal and policy of innocent until proven guilty however the presumption of guilt with so much proof stacked against should have been enough for his party to take action long before now.  That we as a nation let this go on for so long gives us a bad name and it really doesn't say much for our legal system.

It only takes a laugh to remind you of something sometimes.  Other times, you don't remember for weeks or months!

It's funny how the mind works. Or doesn't at times.

Hidden meanings, mixed messages, uncaught hints, optomistic hopes but shattered dreams.

What am I talking about? Nothing, That could have been everything.

Was it my fault? possibly.

With what I know now would I have changed things? No.

There's always a reason. Even if we don't recognise it right away.

Confused?

Good.

With  confusion and sadness comes appreciation of clarity and happyness.

I'm rewriting the user interface and possibly adding some functionality into the website for Maurice lennon.  You'll find the first mock up over on my home-server running OpenSuSE 10.3 at http://digitaldarragh.dyndns.org/maurice  Specifically, at the moment I'm looking for people to look at the visual design.  there's a picture that Emma has taken and edited with a fiddle at the top right.  The fiddle is at an angle and is slightly tilted.  I'm curious if it fits together.  If not, do you have any suggestions?

I was thinking to my self that things had been a bit quiet over the last few days.  I was getting absolutely no comments at all since around Saturday!

I had been doing some modification last weekend when I had some time.  I rewrote some of the response form to get rid of an annoying little bug that was emailing me the responses twice.  Only problem was, I enabled a validation feature that I didn't want and therefore didn't allow for.  So, nothing was let through as a result.

All is back up and running now.