Patrick L Archibald

SouthEast LinuxFest 2010

2010-06-13T17:54:00.000-04:00

I thoroughly enjoyed the second annual SouthEast LinuxFest. I met several of my on-line friends and gained a wealth of information from the sessions. A tip of the hat to all the hard working organizers and speakers. Great job!

This year the event was held at the Marriott at Renaissance Park hotel in Spartanburg, SC. In 2009 it was held at Clemson University.

The hotel accommodations were great. The Marriott had large meeting rooms and the staff seemed to be there when needed and invisible when they weren't needed.

There was a great crowd on hand for Saturday's events. The crowd on Sunday was slim. I think next year it should be Friday 1PM through Saturday evening. I would leave Sunday as a travel day.

The session schedule was varied and packed. There were 6 tracks on Saturday and many Birds of a Feather (BOF) meetings. Below is a list of the sessions I attended:

Friday afternoon - UbuCon: Jono Bacon, Rick Spencer and gang demoed Quickly, the python rapid development tool
Saturday 9AM - Bradley Kuhn: GPLv3: Better Copyleft for Developers and Users
Saturday 10AM - Jon "Maddog" Hall: A Personal History of Free Software (see my video link below).
Saturday 11AM - Nick Owen: Securing your network with open-source technologies: Tips & Tricks
Saturday 1PM - Cat Allman: Getting Started in Free and Open Source
Saturday 2PM - Doug Vann: How Drupal is expanding the role of OpenSource in Government, Private Industry and Beyond!
Saturday 3PM - Michael DeHaan: Datacenter Automation Strategies With Puppet
Saturday 4PM - Jay Pfaffman: LTSP as a New Model of Ubiquitous Computing for Schools: Fact or Foolishness?
Sunday 9AM - Alan Hicks: Introduction to the 802.11 MAC

If you are interested in Linux/Free and Open Source Software I highly recommend attending SouthEast LinuxFest 2011. Stay tuned to the SouthEast LinuxFest website http://www.southeastlinuxfest.org.

Here is a video clip I put together from my favorite SouthEast LinuxFest 2010 session. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb26slhtT1Q

Matthew Godbold High School Graduation Party

2010-06-05T11:23:00.000-04:00

Matthew Godbold graduated high school in 2010. A party was held to celebrate his achievement. A good time was had by all. Enjoy Donna's photo album.

Renovation 2010 - Lighting Purchased and ThinSet Removal

2010-05-02T20:00:00.001-04:00

We purchased our under cabinet lighting, 2 sconce lights for the foyer, 1 hanging light for the foyer, 1 hanging light for the dining room, 1 dome light for the foyer and 2 dome lights for the hallway. Everything but the sconce lights are Quoizel. Most of it was in stock at Charleston Lighting and Interiors and was on sale during their annual outdoor tent sale. The remaining items will be in Saturday May 8, 2010. This was the highlight of our weekend (pun intended).

Our electrician should be in Wednesday to start phase 1 of the electrical work.

We met with our tile installer on Saturday. Among the many things discussed it was confirmed that we must remove the thinset from the slab flooring.

We spent several hours Saturday and Sunday removing thinset from the slab floors. What a PITA. We have tried several methods. The most promising and least labor intensive is using a pneumatic hammer with a chisel installed. It is very slow going and dusty. We only completed an 1/8th of the floor. I plan to visit AAA Rentals to look for some better tool. Ever forum post I've read mentions how hard it is to remove thinset is and there is no silver bullet. In our case the thinset and the flooring have become one. It is hard work regardless of the tool.

Our 18x18 inch tile is in. There are 2 pallets weighing 1500 lbs each. Too much for my Ford Ranger. The installer will pick it up soon. We still need to locate and purchase our decorative tile for the foyer. We are looking for some 3x6 and 3x3 pieces in glossy black.

That's it from the dust bowl.

Renovation 2010 - Remaining Floors Prepped

2010-04-25T16:51:00.000-04:00

We removed the vinyl flooring, adhesive, and quarter round molding from the laundry room, ironing room, and half bath. We are ready for the electrician, painter, tile layer, and cabinet installers.

Laundry room

Ironing room

Renovation 2010 - Floor Prep and Appliances Delivered

2010-04-19T05:41:00.000-04:00

We spent the weekend prepping the floors. Our appliances were delivered Saturday and will hang out in our garage for a few weeks pending flooring, cabinets, and painting.

We removed the vinyl flooring from the kitchen, carpet from the dining room and ceramic tile from entrance and hallway. The old ceramic tiles were laid directly on the slab and did not want to come up. I had to use a 4 pound sledge hammer and a chisel. This was the most physically challenging job I've had since filling in the swimming pool a few years ago. Below are two videos and several pictures documenting the weekend activity.

Convection wall mounted oven.

Stainless steel counter depth refrigerator.

Wall mount oven.

Range top.

Entrance with ceramic tile removed.

Hallway with ceramic tile removed. Quarter round molding removed and tape to the wall.

Dining room with carpet removed.

Kitchen with vinyl flooring removed.

Vidoes segments shot with a Canon HF20. Video created in Blender on Ubuntu 9.10.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9W1G_OL3Wc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_5afEfKRYw

Renovation 2010 - Tile Finally Selected

2010-04-02T17:12:00.000-04:00

After several weeks of shopping we have selected our tile. Palmetto Tile Distributors at 4639 Rivers Av has the widest selection and the best showroom in the Charleston SC area. See below a photo taken at the Palmetto Tile showroom of our possible tile configuration for our foyer.

Charleston Battery Sunrise on Good Friday 2010

2010-04-02T16:37:00.000-04:00

I awoke 5AM Good Friday to travel from Goose Creek to downtown Charleston in pursuit of a picturesque sunrise. My first stop was on top of the Charleston Visitor Center parking garage. I didn't like the scene from that vantage point. Too many ugly rooftops. My next stop was California Dreaming restaurant dock. The James Island connector bridge ruined my view there. My last stop was Charleston's East Battery. I set my tri-pod and camera to film a beautiful sunrise. Getting up before dawn makes my day off from work a little longer and witnessing the sun in all its glory puts everything into proper perspective. A fantastic start to a long weekend. Happy Easter everyone.

Charleston Battery Sunrise on Good Friday 2010

Charleston East Battery Homes on Good Friday 2010

2010-04-02T15:39:00.001-04:00

Shortly after sunrise I secured my Canon HF20 video camera and tri-pod on to the bed of my Ford Ranger pick-up and filmed the historic homes of Charleston's East Battery. The music is The Charleston from the Internet Archive.

View Larger Map Charleston East Battery Homes on Good Friday 2010

Cooper River Bridge Run 2010

2010-03-27T23:02:00.002-04:00

The Cooper River Bridge Run is the best organized and the best conducted 10-K race in the world. It includes world-class competition in a unique setting with unparalleled participant satisfaction. It broadens community cooperation and participation in healthy events throughout the year. The Cooper River Bridge Run serves as a model of health motivation for other communities throughout the world.

Below are two YouTube videos I put together. The first one features the wheelchair racers and the second features the run's race leaders. Check them out in HD if you have the bandwidth and horsepower.
Wheelchair racers
Leading Runners

Renovation 2010 - Weekend 02

2010-03-21T18:27:00.000-04:00

During weekend 02 of renovation 2010 we've accomplished the following in the kitchen:

Wall paper removed ✔
Popcorn texture removed from ceiling ✔
Microwave removed ✔
All cabinets removed except for around the sink ✔

Our trip to Melcer Tile Company did not yield a floor tile we really like. We came home with a couple of samples but we'll probably look around some more. That is it for this week. See kitchen photos below.

Popcorn texture removed from ceiling.

All cabinets removed except for around the sink.

Wall paper removed all the way to the bay window.

Renovation 2010 Begins - Weekend 01

2010-03-14T20:30:00.001-04:00

Donna and I have been saving and planning for a long overdue kitchen renovation. April K. Lipps, Interior Designer, has been a great help with the planning. We've picked out the kitchen cabinets and have an initial design drawn by Patti Palmer of Home Depot. We have the granite picked out for the counter tops. We are still debating the tile which will cover almost half of our home, including our entrance, dining, kitchen and laundry room.

The demolition in the kitchen started this weekend. Donna and I will be doing most of the demolition work to save some cash. This weekend we removed some wall paper and a few of the kitchen cabinets. I reused the kitchen pantry in the garage. I have one door to put on the pantry after some glue dries.

Well that is it for weekend 01. See the pictures of the devastation below.

Picture above is where the kitchen pantry and one other cabinet was.

Picture above shows the cabinet removed from the left corner where the US flag is standing for the night. Opposite that corner is where the pantry and other cabinet was.

Picture above shows where we stopped the wall paper removal.

Here is the kitchen pantry relocated to the garage. Notice the doors are different colors. Like I mentioned the renovation is long overdue. The remaining door will be mounted after the glue on the damaged face board dries.

Rare Snow Accumulation in Goose Creek SC USA

2010-02-13T07:43:00.005-05:00

Remote Control Camera

2009-09-20T18:07:00.013-04:00

I read about another powerful package of free and open source software (FOSS) today. This software application can control over 1,100 different cameras. The command is gphoto2. With this command you can instruct a camera to take a picture, retrieve pictures, list files on the camera, delete files off the camera, etc...

I like birdwatching and taking pictures of birds. I could never get close enough to take a good picture until now. With gphoto2 I can set my camera on a tri-pod in my backyard right in front of my bird feeders. I connect the camera via USB to a netbook. The netbook sits under the camera on the tri-pod. The netbook is connected to my wireless router via Wi-Fi. I have a computer in the living room that has a window view of my feeders. I remotely connect to my netbook using the ssh command. When a bird comes in to feed I execute the gphoto2 command on the netbook and now I've got an up-close-and-personal photo of the bird.

Here is the command syntax I'm using on my netbook running Ubuntu 9.04 operating system: gphoto2 --capture-image --get-file capt0000.jpg --folder /store_00010001 --hook-script test-hook.sh --force-overwrite The gphoto2 command above tells the netbook to instruct the camera to take a photo, get the file from the camera and display it. I can then decide whether or not it is a keeper. If it is a keeper I copy the file from the netbook to my computer in the living room with the following command: scp 192.168.111.2:/home/htplainf/capt0000.jpg capt0009.jpg The command scp above performs a secure copy from the netbook to the computer in the living room.

I didn't get to spend much time taking pictures due to the inclement weather but I did iron out my work flow. Below are a couple shots of up-close-and-personal cardinals. Click on the photos to enlarge.

I'm frequently amazed by the free and open source Linux operating system Ubuntu. If it can be done with software it can be done on Linux and at no cost to the user.

Compilation Video of the 2005 Ravenel Bridge Fireworks Show

2009-09-19T16:12:00.012-04:00

On July 14, 2005 the cities of Charleston and Mt Pleasant SC celebrated the opening of the Arthur Ravenel Jr Bridge with a magnificent fireworks show. I snapped over 400 pictures that night. I published the photos to my website PatrickArchibald.com. The next day the photos went viral. The site went down for a few hours while I negotiated extra bandwidth with my web hosting provider. Good times.

Recently while exploring video encoding on my Ubuntu 8.10 Linux computer I ran across the mencoder command. One of the many things you can do with the mencoder command is create videos from images.

My 400 fireworks photos are compiled at 15 per second in the video below. Enjoy the next 28 seconds.

Below is the command syntax I used to create this video.
mencoder "mf://*.jpg" -mf fps=15 -o output.avi -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4

I'm frequently amazed by the free and open source Linux operating system Ubuntu. If it can be done with software it can be done on Linux and at no cost to the user.

Goose Creek Fireworks July 4th 2009

2009-07-04T21:36:00.004-04:00

We watched from our backyard deck the city of Goose Creek shoot fireworks. They started the show a little early in the evening. You could still see blue sky. Check out the slideshow.

Mount Pleasant Pier

2009-07-04T08:27:00.004-04:00

The Charleston County Parks and Recreation Commission and the Town of Mount Pleasant have built a super park/pier. To visit the pier take the Ravenel bridge into Mt Pleasant SC and turn right like you are going to Patriots Point. The entrance to the Mt Pleasant Pier is on the right. Check out my Mt Pleasant Pier photo album.

PLA KayakCam

2009-05-30T21:34:00.014-04:00

I mounted my HD video camera to my kayak and paddled Chicken Creek SC. It was a relaxing trip. I have some YouTube clips to share below. Nothing exciting just a peaceful time-out. Enjoy.

View Larger Map

Hummingbird Video Clips

2009-05-17T18:28:00.031-04:00

To capture a rare vacation I purchased a high-definition video camera, Canon HF20. I didn't get much vacation footage but I'm starting a library of hummingbird video clips. My original plan was to combine the clips into a single 5 minute video production complete with transitions and audio but my aging PC is not up to the task of HD video editing. The revised plan is to just upload the clips as-is to YouTube. Below are links to the HD version of my YouTube clips. Please ignore or mute the audio.

If you have a slow Internet connection or an older computer you may need to toggle from the HD version by clicking on the red HD button at the bottom of the YouTube video player or try playing the standard versions directly from my YouTube channel.

PLA Tech Notes Blog

2009-01-03T21:56:00.002-05:00

I have a technical blog at http://platechnotes.patrickarchibald.com/. Take a look at it and stick it in your RSS reader if you are interested.

My Neighborhood in Google Street View

2009-01-03T21:43:00.004-05:00

I'm not sure how long ago this was done but Google captured my neighborhood in Street View. It is kind of neat and creepy. The photo looks like it was shot in December of 2007.
View Larger Map

Hanahan Christmas Parade 2008

2008-12-06T13:19:00.001-05:00

The 2008 Hanahan Christmas Parade was held December 6. Check out the slideshow.

Tesla Roadster

2008-12-02T20:50:00.005-05:00

What I want for Christmas or for my birthday or just cause.

100% electric
0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds
Burns no bloody oil
244 miles per charge
Pennies per mile

Home Depot Recycles CFL

2008-11-29T19:39:00.005-05:00

I learned from earth911.com that Home Depot recycles Compact Fluorescent Lightbulbs (CFL). I took 4 burned out CFLs to the Home Depot on Northwoods Blvd. There is a recycle bin just inside the front door. And guess what? I purchased something after depositing the CFLs. It really does pay for a company to be green.

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-28T13:13:00.003-05:00

The wife and I were in Myrtle Beach for Thanksgiving. Food, drink, family, and friends. Good times. Check out the album.

Steven and Rondalyn Wed

2008-11-15T17:24:00.001-05:00

Check out the album.