Where is Darran?

72 days since the last post. Thought I should put something up here.

Some milestones:

~14 months back in the United States of America

~13 months with ServiceMesh

~a few trail runs done, 1 Marathon done, commuting by bicycle

~pretty boring, focused on work and personal studies

Current activities:

I’m currently focused on activities at ServiceMesh and training for Ironman France. I have also been lightly involved in some community projects (Ubuntu, Google Chrome OS). Additionally, in the evenings, I have been reading a variety of books in the realms of technology, philosophy, and government. Public libraries are a great community service.

Some motivations:

While particularly focused on personal behaviors, I have also been looking outward at local, national, and global behaviors and the government policies that function at each of these levels. While not committed to any extent greater than my own self at this point, I believe I possess a desire to advocate and promote ideas focused around increasing the quality of life through healthier lifestyle choices, particularly by focusing on alternative methods of transportation, physical activity, and diet. To a lesser extent there is also a desire to create a perception of living a better life by living a fulfilling life. While this latter motivation is probably greater in depth, I am still working to define what constitutes a fulfilling life.

Today Mikey and I split up in different directions. Mikey was keen on exploring Christchurch and heading south and I was keen on heading north. Think I had a standard breakfast of a banana, an orange, and some instant coffee. Afterwards, I found a bus ticket headed north to Kaikoura. Could have taken the Kiwi bus, but it was headed out the next day and I didn’t feel like burning another day in Christchurch. It’s a great city, but the road was starting to get to me. Mikey gave me a ride to the bus stop and I dropped my bags off and then headed to the library for some free internet. The library ended up closing, so I grabbed some food at a restaurant next to Base Hostel and then headed to the internet cafe next door to upload some pics to Facebook. Eventually, it was time to take the bus to Kaikoura. I was on my own again and feeling a little roughed up for some reason. We got in late and the bus driver dropped me off on the corner. I walked the rest of the way to the YHA in Kaikoura. It was late and the kitchen was closed so I think I had some bread with peanut butter and some other snacks and then hit the sack. Tomorrow I would catch another bus headed even farther north.

Tour Progression:

View New Zealand 2009 in a larger map

It was a cold night, but we stayed warm inside the minivan. Mikey had a series of blankets and I had a sleeping bag. I reckon it was pretty foul, but you can’t tell after you’ve been in it so long. We got a breakfast in and packed the van. The Top 10 Holiday Park in Hanmer Springs is pretty nice. It has everything you need. After packing up we made our way to Hanmer Springs. Unfortunately, there is no alcohol allowed. Regardless, I poured a few brews into a large water bottle and we made our way inside. Hanmer Springs is pretty much a water park made out of hot tubs. There are pools of all different temperatures and sizes and people are just chilling out.

mikey getting some r&r after summiting Mt. Fyffe

yours truly enjoying one of the hottest tubs

There’s only so much time you can spend chilling in a hot tub. It was low season and there wasn’t really anyone to chat up. Mikey and I left after having thoroughly enjoyed the springs. Next, we hit up a small grocery store and picked up some sandwich items and snacks for the road. We got into Christchurch in the evening. We took the long way in and had a little tour of Christchurch while trying to find the hostel. Christchurch is one of my most favorite places. It is absolutely brilliant. In hindsight I probably should have tried to find work there instead of making my way back up to Auckland. The first time I was in Christchurch I stayed at Base. This time we stayed at Jailhouse Accodomodation. The hostel is a renovated prison and is one of the coolest places I’ve ever stayed. Mikey and I had a quiet night catching up on laundry, internet, and having take out Chinese food for dinner. Check out some pics of the hostel below.

It’ s always awesome being blessed with incorrect code snippets in beginner programming books. Luckily, I have enough sexy house music to work through anything (thank you radio 1!). If you’re looking for a working print_it.c example, look no further!

much thanks to: http://www.programmersheaven.com/mb/beginnercpp/367391/367391/newbie-programming-error/ – There are bunch of sites with code for print_it.c and programmersheaven.com was the only one that had working code.

code:

/* print_it.c-- This program prints a listing with line numbers! */
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>
void do_heading(char *filename);
int line = 0, page = 0;
int main( int argv, char *argc[] )
{
char buffer[256];
FILE *fp;
if( argv < 2)
{
fprintf(stderr, "\nProper Usage is: ");
fprintf(stderr, "\n\nprint_it filename.ext\n" );
return(1);
}
if (( fp = fopen( argc[1], "r" )) == NULL )
{
fprintf( stderr, "Error opening file, %s!", argc[1]);
return(1);
}
page = 0;
line = 1;
do_heading( argc[1]);
while( fgets( buffer, 256, fp ) != NULL )
{
if( line % 55 == 0 )
do_heading( argc[1] );
fprintf( stdout, "%4d:\t%s", line++, buffer );
}
fprintf( stdout, "\f" );
fclose(fp);
return 0;
}
void do_heading( char *filename )
{
page++;
if ( page > 1)
fprintf( stdout, "\f" );
fprintf( stdout, "Page: %d, %s\n\n", page, filename );
}
/* print_it.c-- This program prints a listing with line numbers! */#include <stdlib.h>#include <stdio.h>
void do_heading(char *filename);
int line = 0, page = 0;
int main( int argv, char *argc[] ){char buffer[256];FILE *fp;
if( argv < 2){fprintf(stderr, "\nProper Usage is: ");fprintf(stderr, "\n\nprint_it filename.ext\n" );return(1);}
if (( fp = fopen( argc[1], "r" )) == NULL ){fprintf( stderr, "Error opening file, %s!", argc[1]);return(1);}
page = 0;line = 1;do_heading( argc[1]);
while( fgets( buffer, 256, fp ) != NULL ){if( line % 55 == 0 )do_heading( argc[1] );
fprintf( stdout, "%4d:\t%s", line++, buffer );}
fprintf( stdout, "\f" );fclose(fp);return 0;}
void do_heading( char *filename ){page++;
if ( page > 1)fprintf( stdout, "\f" );
fprintf( stdout, "Page: %d, %s\n\n", page, filename );}

now all that’s left is:

gcc print_it.c -o print

./print print_it.c

This is a down and dirty how-to. I found that streaming via WebcamStudio resulted in higher quality streams than streaming directly to justin.tv. This approach also opens up some options not present in the browser based streaming solution justin.tv offers. WebcamStudio is not included in the Ubuntu repositories so we will have to download it manually.

1. Download WebcamStudio from the creators site at www.ws4gl.org. This will eventually forward you to sourceforge. Grab the .deb file from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/webcamstudio/files/

2. Install the deb file by double clicking it. This will open up the Ubuntu deb installer. The deb installer is now included in the Ubuntu Software on newer releases. Click the install button. (Note: If you have Synaptic open, the installer will hang until Synaptic is closed. This is a bug in Ubuntu)

3. WebcamStudio is installed on the Main Menu under the Sound and Video section. Click the WebcamStudio link to launch the app. You can also press Alt+F2 and type in webcamstudio.

4. Once WebcamStudio launches you will need to select your webcam under devices. Double click your webcam.

5. Everything else should be easy. Click the play button under the Source Layer section. To verify that your webcam is working, click the output menu on the menu bar and select Show Preview. This will open up a preview window.

6. As you can see the coloring is off. To fix this we are going to apply an effect by clicking the effect tab and selecting SwapRedBlue and then enabling the effect by clicking the move button.

7. Now that everything is good we are going to go to justin.tv and login to our account. Click the Go Live! button in the top right and the select webcam. If you only have one video source available on your pc, the video feed from the webcam we previously configured should be displayed.

8. Next, lets do something special with WebcamStudio. Select the Output menu on the WebcamStudio application and then select SinglePaint. This will open up another preview panel that has paint options. We can use this to paint anything on the video stream we would like. If you like these kind of things, make sure to check out the effects tab in WebcamStudio.

Please feel free to donate to www.ws4gl.org.