Time to get some real detail

Today I finished reviewing all of the primary and secondary roads in Tallahassee. Name abbreviations have been removed, positions have been corrected, dual-carriage ways have been separated out, and other relevant meta-data has been added.
 
At this point I'm going to move on to cleaning up neighborhoods, adding area detail such as marking wooded areas and lakes, and removing erroneous roads. The TIGER import has lots of residential roads that don't exist in real life, and plenty of other roads just grossly misplaced. Sometimes there are named streets that don't even exist. 

I've also added detail for a few schools around town.

I find the maps look truly beautiful when an area has a high level of detail added. I don't think I will be adding too many building, except when working on schools. At some point I will probably tackle FSU and FAMU, though those will be major undertakings. I've already got some FSU mapped out.

The good news is that if you are passing through Tallahassee with your GPS and OSM data, you can have a high level of confidence that you will be guided through without any sort of crazy bad TIGER data causing you heartache.

Fix flickering in Boxee with ATI graphics card

I recently installed Boxee on a new computer I got for my daughter.  It was running Ubuntu 11.04 and I used this fix to get it to install.  Unfortunately, like many in the comments section of the fix blog post, was getting too much flickering in the application to be able to use it.  It took me a little Googling, but I finally found a fix after following a link that suggested I follow another link, which finally took me to instructions that hinted at how to fix it.  Apparently the problem exists when using an ATI card with the open source driver and Compiz enabled, but don't quote me on that.

To fix it, one simply needs to turn off vsync.  To do this open up the guisettings.xml configuration file and change vsync from 2 to 0.

First, lets backup the file.

cp ~/.boxee/UserData/guisettings.xml ~/.boxee/UserData/guisettings.xml.bak

Now we need to edit the file.  Run the first command to do it with a GUI, or the second to use vim.

gedit ~/.boxee/UserData/guisettings.xml
vi ~/.boxee/UserData/guisettings.xml

Find vsync in this file and change the 2 to a 0, and save the file.  It should be line 551 in the file.  Lines 546  through 552 should look like this initially.   

    <videoscreen>
        <guicalibration></guicalibration>
        <resolution>11</resolution>
        <testpattern></testpattern>
        <testresolution></testresolution>
        <vsync>2</vsync>
    </videoscreen>

After the change they should look like this.

    <videoscreen>
        <guicalibration></guicalibration>
        <resolution>11</resolution>
        <testpattern></testpattern>
        <testresolution></testresolution>
        <vsync>0</vsync>
    </videoscreen>

Now if you start boxee it no longer flicker.

Finally getting into real mapping

I've been mapping for quite some time, spending a lot of resources getting a ridiculous amount of detail in the neighborhood I work. That work is 99% done, and I think I've got a pretty good sense of mapping for OSM.

Yesterday I started working on combing through Tallahassee via the Bing Satellite imagery and fixing things up. There's a lot of residential roads grossly misplaced, and dual carriageways that need to be split out as such.

My plan of attack is to make sure the major roads in Tallahassee are accurately mapped so that at the very least, routing applications could properly take people through the major parts of Tallahassee properly.

I'm debating spending resources on also marking POIs, such as gas stations and grocery stores. That is, of course, very nice to have, but could take significant time away from getting the streets down correctly.

How to setup auto-login in Ubuntu at the console Part 2.

These instructions are for Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric and onward, and any other version that uses LightDM, as opposed to the previous default of GDM, which I had previously wrote about at here.

First we'll backup the configuration file and then in your editor of choice, probably vi open up /etc/gdm/gdm.conf.

sudo cp /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.bak

sudo vi /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

Next find the line that reads:

#default-user=bob

#default-user-timeout=5

In the first line change "false" to "true" and in the second line append the username you want to auto-login after the equals sign. Here is how mine looked:

default-user=david

default-user-timeout=0

After a reboot you will find that Ubuntu goes straight to the desktop of the user you defined.

There are other settings you can set in here, such as a time login. Most of these are available from the GUI, but feel free to look around and find any other settings you might want to change.

Features needed in Thunderbird to replace Evolution

As most know by now, Ubuntu 11.10 is looking to replace the Evolution mail client with Mozilla Thunderbird.  Evolution has long been problematic.  I have found it to crash pretty often, fail to display mail messages, and just generally be quirky.  Over the last two years it has really shaped up a lot, but still remains pretty quirky as of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

To produce a quality Linux desktop, shipping a quirky e-mail client can be a turn off for many, and that's what's lead to talk about replacing Evolution with Thunderbird.  Despite it's problems, Evolution does many things right.  Syncing Evolution with your cloud services, especially Google services, is especially easy.  Evolution also comes with native Exchange support, with some exceptions.  The Exchange server must provide Webmail for the Exchange support to work.  However when it does work, users can send/receive e-mail, view and mail contacts, and integrate with their Exchange calendar, all in one application, almost as if they where using the Microsoft Outlook.  This can be a real savior for people like myself who run Ubuntu in a corporate environment deeply tied to Microsoft products.

All Calendar integration in Evolution comes with the benefit of desktop integration.  Any calendar configured in Evolution shows up in Gnome calendar panel, allowing the user to easily see what's scheduled without having to fire up Evolution.

All-in-all Evolution has a very solid feature set, and great usability and integration.  It's just those nasty quirks that pop-up from time to time that keep it back.  It seems to me that the best thing the Ubuntu community could do is go through the Evolution bug list and start applying some fixes.  A change of client seems rather drastic, but at this point, inevitable.

In this light, I have installed the Oneiric release client and kicked the Thunderbird tires.  Here's what I've seen so far.

Setting up Gmail is very easy.  I simply put in my Gmail login and password and that was it.  Thunderbird recognized the @gmail.com and did the rest of the configuration.  Evolution will auto-populate the Google server information, but Thunderbird doesn't even show you the server configuration options.  It simply notifies you it knows what to do from here and finishes.

After it downloaded all the message headers, I had one new e-mail, I received a desktop notification about the new e-mail.  However, Evolution also turns the mail notification icon in the menu green.  If you click on it, you will see the new e-mail in your inbox.  Thunderbird provided no such desktop integration.

Thunderbird does not include any sort of Calendar integration by default.  Instead, I had to manually install the Lightning plugin, which provides the calendar support.  However, this was not enough, as Lightning does not provide any remote calendar syncing.  To get Google Calendar support I had to install the "Provider for Google Calendar" plugin.

Even still, it was not as intuitive to setup Google Calendar support.  I had to log into Google Calendar in my browser to get the iCal URL of the calendar I wanted to support, and copy-and-paste this into Thunderbird.  With Evolution I simply provide my calendar credentials and it will give me a list of calendars in my Google Calendar account, and then syncs the one I selected.

Finally, the calenders do not integrate with the Gnome calendar.

I hope that 11.10 has the Lightning and Google Calendar plugins installed by default, but even still, this is a step backwards.  Showing people the tight integration between cloud calendar services and Ubuntu has been a point of impression for many users in my experience.

Next is the contact syncing.  Again, setting up Evolution to sync with your Google Contacts is very easy.  With Thunderbird I had to install the "Google Contacts" plugin.  After that I selected my existing Google account and my contacts where in Thunderbird.  I really liked that I didn't need to reenter my Google credentials.  This is a move forward from Evolution, and a feature I'd like to see replicated in the Google Calendar plugin.

Thunderbird has no Exchange support.  For those of us in a corporate environment, this is a loss.  If your Exchange server supports IMAP, one can still check their e-mail in Thunderbird, but there will be neither contact or calendar support.

Others thoughts.  Thunderbird does not store its connection information in Seahorse, leaving the connections unavailable to other applications that would like to integrate.  I don't think the icons are coming from the Gnome theme.  Minimizing to tray can be accomplished via an extension, but I'd like to see something similar to how Rhythmbox and Banshee can be minimized to the sound menu.  Neither of these are possible in Evolution either, so ...

So where does this leave us?  I believe we need to have the Lighting, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts plugins installed by default.  A custom plugin needs to be written to bring the Lightning calendars into the Gnome calendar menu.  This will bring most users into having all of their existing Evolution functionality in Thunderbird.  An Exchange plugin for Thunderbird should be started.  Thunderbird needs to be extended to act like an application that was written to be part of the Linux desktop, not an application that just happens to also run on the Linux desktop.

Finally, I wonder how much the mail client really matters.  I don't know many people who use thick mail clients.  Everyone seems to be happy using their providers webmail.  The only reason I use Evolution is to have an offline backup of my e-mail, and for the desktop notifications about new e-mail and calendar events.  When I receive these I then go to the webmail interface and respond accordingly.

I wonder what KDE users think about how it looks, feels, and integrates for them.

South-East Tour Day 8 - Nashville to Smoky Mountains

This morning Kim and I woke to the 7:30 alarm we set on her phone.  We immediately began packing and gradually got the girls up, dressed and fed.

There was a pretty heavy overcast, but we were going to try and get a dip in the lake before we left.  However, as soon as we got fully packed up and down to the lake it began to pour and thunder.  The swim was going to act as our final "bath" before we headed to the Smokys, as there are no showing facilities there.  Since the lake wasn't going to happen, we drove up to the bath house and took proper showers. 

We were scheduled to turn in our rental car today, which meant the GPS had to go with it.  We couldn't find our Tennessee map, so we decided to meet somewhere dry to figure out what to do next.  Kim led us I.to a McDonald's/gas station that had free wireless.  There we filled up our tanks, ate brunch, and pulled up directions on our Chrome laptop, which I copied onto paper.

We returned the rental at the airport, which we are hoping will be alright.  We were supposed to turn it in in Tallahassee.

From the airport we all loaded up in the van and headed East on I-40.  The drive was absolutely magnificent.  I don't try to drive very fast, usually going between 55 & 65 mph.  I only went 70 - 75 on long downhill stretches.  Once I could only push 35, during a long uphill stretch.  Fortunately there were 3 semis in front of me doing the same thing, so I don't think I stuck out too much.

Once we got off the Interstate we entered a little town.  There we ate and picked up groceries.

A few times we thought we may have missed a turn and a few other we almost did.  Driving with just maps and directions, we did have our Smoky Mountains map, is much more nerve racking that the comfort at a GPS guiding you through every turn.  Each time we were sure we were going the wrong way and was about stop, our turn would immediately show up.  Kim and I took this as a sign we should give up quicker if we wanted our turns to show up quicker.  In the park the roads were often completely unmarked which made things really fun.  And what should be only a mile drive seems much longer when you are only going 30 - 35 through winding roads.  My odometer is broken so we couldn't use that to judge distance traveled.

We finally made it into the campground in our site.  It is right next to a little stream.  There is also a full river very close by, which makes for a very comforting background noise.  Kim setup the tens while I played with the kids in the stream, and walked around the campgrounds with them.  We used Katie's tent to store our stuff, and I will be sleeping with Athena and Arianna in our tent.  Kim and Aurora will sleep in the camper, which I set up.

The weather here is very great.  A heavy overdraft, coupled with occasional light sprinkles means we never sweat no matter how much we work or play.  It also provides a gorgeous fog.

Occasionally we'll hear thunder from far off in the distance, but rarely do we actually see the lightning.

We are very low on clean laundry and there are no laundering facilities, so I washed our clothes in the stream and hung them on bungee chords and ropes I attached to some trees.  We'll see if they'll be dry in two days.  We've got our undergarments hanging in the camper, so if nothing else, we should have clean dry undies, which is the most important.

The girls wanted smores, so I tried to get a fire going, but anything I could find for starter was too damp. Everyone got too anxious and just had "row" smores.  Just as everyone else was ready to turn in, and with the help of lighter fluid, Kim's insistence, I got the fire started.  So I was the only one to get hot smores.

Eating the smores was the last thing I did before writing this.  Since the laptop is dead, and there is no Internet for the Chrome-book, I am writing this on notebook paper to type in later.  In fact, my last two entries are in a text document on the laptop, waiting to be pasted in the online blog when I can provide both power and Internet to it.

Now I'm off to bed, and if the weather gets too bad, the lightning is getting closer, the girls and I will move to the van too.

South-East Tour Day 6 - Trip to Memphis

This morning we ate breakfast and left for Memphis.  Kim punched in the address to the Volkswagen dealership in Memphis and we left.  I spent most of the trip driving between 60 to 70 mph and the van held up very well under these conditions.

We arrived at the dealership at 5:15 and I was feeling pretty good about making it when I hit the key and accidentally turned off the van in a place that was not very good for push starting, which kind of killed my high from making it.  Mark at the dealership told me how to get to the place that had my starter, but they where closing in fifteen minutes, and I still had to push-start my van, which wasn't going to happen in time to get there and picked up the starter.

Mark arranged to have them get the starter the next day since we already knew where they where at, which we agreed to.  Kim and I tried to push start the van but it wouldn't work.  Finally a mechanic shop hooked the van up to a large truck with towing cables and pulled me as I popped it into gear and got it started.

Kim was pretty stressed about not getting the starter today, having to push start the van so much today, and that our campsite was so far away, so we agreed to get a hotel again that was near the dealership so we could get it early and I could get started on installing it as early as possible.

This afternoon we ate at a pretty good Mexican restaurant called Happy Mexican and swam in the hotel pool.  I am looking forward to getting our trip back on track tomorrow.

South-East Tour Day 7 - Nashville, TN

This morning we awoke to some light rain that only lasted about 45 minutes.  After a breakfast of grits and left-over pancakes we headed to the Verizon store to pick up my new phone.  As it turns out, even though I had selected to have the phone overnighted, it wasn't scheduled to arrive until Monday, at which point we would not be in Nashville anymore.  The guy at the store was extremly helpful and called the campground we are supposed to be at on Tuesday to make sure it was okay if he could ship the package there, and he would send it overnight.  So hopefully on Tuesday I will finally be back in business with my phone ... hopefully.

After the Verizon store we headed to the reconstruction of the Parthenon.  The building was really cool.  You enter through a downstairs area that has an art gallery and an exhibit that lays out the constructions of the Parthenon from concept to a full-scale museum, including a reconstruction of the statue of Athena, which was upstairs.  The whole thing was incredibly cool.  They had cast reconstructions of actual surviving statues from the original Parthenon, and everything was reconstructed with a high level of detail and quality.  A lady who was part of the reconstruction of the statue of Athena was there volunteering to answer questions.  Aurora and her talked on and on for quite some time, and the two of them really enjoyed each other.  Another really cool part was a pair of bronze doors on each side of the Parthenon that stood about 40 to 50 feet high, but they moved with ease with only a slight push.  The plaque said that they where the largest pair of bronze doors in the world, and are not actually part of the original Parthenon, which probably had doors made out of wood.

After that we ate at an Italian restaurant named Maggiano's, which was much fancier than we where expecting.  Howerver, the kids where really well behaved, the service was great, and the food was excellent.  We even got a few compliments from those eating around us about how cute and well behaved our children where.

We followed this with a visit to the Grand Ole Opry Gaylord Hotel.  This was hands down the most amazing hotel I have ever seen.  You could tell from the bricks and windows that the building was quite old, but was kept in very good condition.  The courtyard in between the buildings had a glass ceiling built in, and was completely air conditioned.  A river ran through the different courtyards, and one area had beautiful plants everywhere, coming out of giant rocks, and planted in with the walkways.  Waterfalls, various fish, and beautiful ponds kept the kids well entertained the whole time.  Athena exclaimed that she never wanted to leave the hotel for her whole life.  And even though we walked around for a couple of hours, the kids never complained that their feet hurt, or that they where getting tired.  It came with dissapointment from all three when it was finally time to go back to our campsight.

We stopped at a Walgreens and picked up chocolate, graham crackers, and marhmellows, which we turned into smores back at the campsite.  The kids all agreed that today was a fun day, and we got them to bed in good time so that we can wake up early and swim in the lake before we head off for the Smoky Mountains.

South-East Tour Day 9 - Smoky Mountains

Last night there was a lot of rain and thunder.  The temperature fell quite a bit.  I had long johns in my tent, but they were sitting against the side and where wet.

Kim and I awoke long before the girls.  I got the fire going again while Kim boiled water for oatmeal.  I put tinfoil on the gril over the fire and took turns placing an article of wet clothing from the line on it to dry.  I would get them mostly dry and place them back on the line to finish drying.  The rain was completely gone, and the clouds that were still in the sky did not look threatening.

After the girls awoke, were fed and dressed, we headed towards Cade's Cove to rent some bicycles.  The bike riding didn't go quite as well as planned, but was still fun.  Athena still needs training wheels, and the ones on her rental bike where kind of crooked, which kept her off balance.

Being in the mountains, there were plenty of hills.  Athena and Arianna both had trouble peddling up hill, and down hill they didn't know to ride breaks and would just keep coming to complete stops.  At they very end of the ride Arianna got going down hill and couldn't stop.  The bike eventual fell over and she went down with it.  Fortunately she wasn't hurt badly and calmed down as I carried her, and both our bikes, back to the rental checkout.  Aurora was a prop on her bike going up and down the hills with ease.

After this we headed on to the Cade's Cove loop.  I didn't know it until we got on, but the loop is nine miles long, and the speed limit is 25 mph.  We would have been happy to drive the thing at 25mph, but cars in front of us wouldn't even break ten, and would sometimes come to complete stops.  The road is one-way and one-line wide.  There are occasional turn-offs with signs urgin slower traffic to use them to let others pass, but the slower vehicles didn't seem to use them.

The loop is a preserve of older houses and churches used by the original settler of the Smoky Mountains.  We passed by the first house, not realizing what the stop there was, until after we passed the parking.  Aurora became very excited when she found out what we passed.

The loop has two shortcuts which let you bypass a large portion of it.  We took the first one, which took us to another house, which had a storage house and stable.  We stopped this time and the girls where very excited.  They just loved walking through these old building and didn't want to leave.

When we returned we again got stuck behind slow moving cars that made frequent stops.  At one point while going up a steep incline, a few vehicles in front of us made a complete stop and everyone got out.  After just sitting there for about five minutes Kim got out and tol them they where creating quite a jam.  They could apparently see a family of black bears, and it didn't occur to them that just stopping in the middle of the road as an inconvenience to everyone behind them.

Once off the loop we headed into town to fill up our gas tank.  During our drive we saw a lot of people pulled off the side of the road swimming in the river.  The kids has exclaimed how they wanted to swim in the river.  So when we got back to our campsite and Kim had a long list of packing she wanted to do, I took the kids back on the road to find a place to swim.

The river water was very cold, but once we got used to it the girls started walking upstream.  The river bottom is entirely rocks and it rarely got beyond waist deep on the girls.  I held Arianna's hand as we walked us, since the rocks where very slipper and the current would have been strong enough to keep her under she would have slipped.

We eventually found a good spot where Aurora and Athena played games and Arianna and I took turns throwing rocks.  Arianna thought throwing rocks with me was about as much fun could be had in this world and seemed prepared to do this indefinitely, but eventually we had to return to the campsite for dinner.

Kim and I made rick, broccoli, and corn for dinner.  The cor was especially sweet and juicy.  I cooked it over the camp fire in tin foild after Kim had soaked it in water for a while.

After dinner we exhausted our supply of chocolate on smores.  We loaded the van up with everything that could be packed away and I made the pop-top bed for Kim and Aurora.  Arianna, Athena and I will sleep in the tent again.

Tomorrow we will find one more thing to do in the Smokys and then head into town to find wifi to get directions to our next campground in Asheville, NC.  Hopefully I'll also be able to get a hold of my friend Sean who lives there.

South-East Tour Day 5 - Stranded in Natchez

Today began really well.  We all woke up and just hung out at our camp site.  The kids glued googly eyes on rocks and ate grits while Kim and I loaded up the Volkswagen.  I made a few rearrangements for where we put stuff so that the middle area wasn't so crowded with stuff.  I even brought out the hose and a rag and gave the van a wash, though I had no soap to really get the hard grime off that has been collected over the miles we've traveled so far.  I also charged up the battery because running the fan and the interior lights had eaten up some of it.

There was a minor problem.  My cell phone had gone belly up on me.  When I tried to turn it on it would go to the boot screen, go black and then cycle back to the boot screen, repeating this loop.  I tried leaving the battery out for an extended amount of time, and then repowering everything, but it did not good.  Even attempting a factory reset just put it back into the boot loop.  I finally had to face the fact that my phone was dead.  Fortunately Kim and I had planned for this possibility and had printed everything out, including directions to each place, and we even had maps of each place we are planning to visit.  I thought this was going to be the worst of my issues, but it turned out to only be a minor blip for the day.

A little after noon we headed up to the ranger station to check in, since we got in too late to check in the day before, and check out.  As we loaded back up in the van it wouldn't start.  I knew the battery was full, so I figured it had to be more starter troubles.  Ever since the starter that was in the van when I bought it went out, the thing has never started quite right, and I've been through a few of them.  This starter is only a couple of weeks old, but given that I had a good battery charged, and putting my keys in the start position wasn't doing anything, I was sure it was more starter issues.

Kim called AAA, got a wrecker issues, ordered someone from Enterprise to pick us to rent a car, and reserved a room at a local hotel.  While waiting on the wrecker and the guy from Enterprise, Kim helped me push the van up hill a little and as she pushed it back in we push-started it, confirming it was starter issues.

At Enterprise Kim took care of getting a car checked out while I called around Jackson, MS and Memphis, TN to try to find someone who could overnight a start, or seeing if someone locally could get it fixed.  The local mechanics where backed up for about a week, and nobody seemed to be able to get a start overnighted.  I finally got the Volkwagen dealership in Memphins, TN to say they could overnight a start, and later they found a shop in Memphis, TN that actually had the starter in stock and for a cheaper price than the dealer.  This was pretty fantastic for the dealership to hook me up with someone locally for cheaper.

With this Kim and I made plans that we would stay the night in the Natchez hotel, fill up the gas tank in the van, push start it the next morning and drive it and the rental to Memphis the next day to get the starter.

The people at Enterprise where really awesome in letting us stay in their building, with our kids who where playing and being really loud, while helping us look up phone numbers to places to call, and letting Kim use their phone while I use Kim's cell phone to make calls.  The girls where really awesome for entertaining each other and being in very high spirits while Kim and I where in a rather stressful situation.

This whole time through the planning at Enterprise I had to leave my van running because there was no good place to park there to give it a good push-start.  I didn't stop it until we arrived at the hotel, which did have a good place for me to park that is on a little bit of an incline that should help with the push-start.

Everyone was glad to have an evening in air conditioning, and to get a nice hot bath, and to watch some TV.  The hotel also had free dinner, a reasonably good chicken parmesan pasta.  After getting fully settled in to the hotel I walked up to the gas station next door and purchased a two-gallon gas container.  I walked back-and-forth filling up the container and then dumping it into the tank of the van, trying to get it filled up so we can make it to Memphis tomorrow without stopping.  I wasn't able to fill the tank all the way up before the station closed, but I will finish that tomorrow.
So this is the break-down I think everyone was sort of expecting.  The engine in the van is rather solid, and I had my mechanic do a lot of work on it before we left to make sure it was in top condition.  Given the number of starters I've gone through in the last year, I'm going to have to have my mechanic look into what is causing that when we get back to Tallahassee.
If everything goes well tomorrow, then when we will only have missed one night in Memphis, and the rest of the trip will be on track to go smoothly.  If not, we'll figure out what to do from there.
I think one thing this trip will have taught us about our family is that, as a group, we are not the campers my family was growing up.  Our future trips will have to include more hotel stays, though I don't believe that using the camper van is out.  The kids genuinely enjoy sleeping in the camper, and I think that as a whole it is a fun traveling vehicle.  It just needs to be reliable, and my family can only rough-it so much.  Perhaps during a time of year when the weather is more agreeable, especially the night temperatures, the family will be up for more extended periods of sleeping in the van.