Mac Mini (original case)

18 months ago I replaced my aged 2006 Mac Mini with an up to date model, which is still my main desktop computer today. The old Mac Mini was relegated to being a quasi-media centre, but of course because it was actually a desktop computer it really wasn't a very good media centre, but due to its age nor was it a very good desktop computer, hence why I replaced it.

I never used it as a media centre beyond the odd occasion and it's spent the last 18 months mostly consuming enough power to sleep and collecting dust. Until this evening, that is. I'm moving again soon (which I'll cover in full in a different post) and I'm trying to take as little as possible with me. I was using an old Dell PC as a local Linux development server, which isn't anything special but did the job nicely. There were three problems with it, however, specifically that it's as ugly as hell, chews through electricity because it was manufactured at a time when computer manufacturers thought it grew on trees, and it belongs to my housemate.

I don't really want to take it with me when I move because of all of those reasons, although I'm sure the last one could be eliminated with £30 or so. Then I remembered that I had this entirely idle old Mac Mini tucked away on a corner of my network doing nothing. I wondered if it would accept an installation of Ubuntu Server, given that it's an Intel-based Mac (the original Intel Core Solo model, no less). Sure enough, it turns out that it can, and it works a treet.

My old Mac Mini has a 60Gb hard disk and 1.25Gb of RAM. It's not going to break any records with its single-core 1.5Ghz processor, but for running a local Apache2 server it's nothing less than what I need. The only caveat is that it won't boot on its own into Linux straight from the hard disk, I have to keep an CD with rEFIt on it in the CD drive for it to do that; it's certainly not the end of the world.

From a cold-boot to getting a login prompt with all services started it uses just 85Mb of RAM and with all the software I need on it and my Git repositories in place it's using just 2.5Gb of it's hard disk. All this on a 65 watt power supply. In addition to this, and despite the fact that it's very different internally to my new Mac Mini, the two look identical from the outside and so look pretty good stacked on top of each other.

So don't throw out your old Mac Mini, give it a proper job to see out its old age! The only thing I can't do with this which I was thinking about doing with the Dell PC was putting an x100P card in it. I'll live.

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Glide is a rapidly growing energy and telecommunications company specialising in looking after tenants, landlords, letting agents and property investors across the UK. They supply gas, electricity, telephony and broadband services to residential and commercial customers.

About Glide

They believe in hard work in an informal atmosphere that encourages people to express their ideas. They look for talented people who want to work with technology and can tackle problems in a smart and creative way. Their employees enjoy working in a challenging environment that brings out the best in them. Customers and customer service are at the heart of everything they do - their business revolves around their customers.

They have their own in-house development, customer support and sales teams and remain focused on keeping their costs low through automation and keeping customers informed through good communication. As technology evolves, they aim to bring new and improved services to their customers as early as possible.

About The Role

They currently have an opportunity for a full-time senior software engineer, starting immediately, as part of their in-house software team.

The role will focus on developing their bespoke systems. Their systems are written in object-orientated PHP with a SQL database. You will need to be a highly competent programmer  in PHP, SQL, Javascript, AJAX, Smarty templates, Model-View-Controller and in documenting your work. Good familiarity with Ubuntu/Debian based systems is required. Experience with invoicing routines, SVN or accountancy systems would be useful.

The role will involve working on projects to develop existing products, launch new products and services, improve internal customer service systems, update and maintain accountancy systems and invoicing scripts, debugging and diagnosing problems with their existing code base and working closely with their customer service teams. The role also includes integrating their system with multiple third party suppliers, redeveloping customer portals and revamping their website.

You will be enthusiastic about new technology, eager to learn, and will hold a degree in Computer Science or equivalent. You will be capable of managing your own time.

Application Details

The company is a place where everyone can be heard. If you like the sound of this opportunity, they'd love to hear from you. Please direct your communication and correspondence through my team or direct to me. Please view the website at www.glide.uk.com for more background information to assist you with your response.

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The script, which supports a single Twitter account, supports the following actions:

• Update (tweet), with option to specify an existing update ID to reply to.
• Retrieve your public timeline (your tweets and those of who you follow).
• Retrieve your own timeline.
• Retrieve the public timeline.
• Retrieve your recent mentions.
• Retrieve recent re-tweets of your updates.
• Search Twitter.

In order to work, you must authorise your Twitter account with SuperTweet, and provide the script with the username and secret that you specify in your SuperTweet account. This is because the script does not support oAuth (at least, not yet). Also, if you use Twitter to post URLs (and you probably do) you will also require a Bit.ly API key. Edit the script and provide both sets of credentials at the top.

The script is self contained, containing all the various classes that it depends on in the same file. I've verified that it works "out of the box" on Ubuntu Linux 10.04 and Mac OS 10.6. It will probably work on many other systems too, assuming they have PHP installed. With a small modification to the first line you can probably get it to work on Windows too, but that's as far as I can advise, you're on your own from there. The version I use doesn't contain the included classes as I link it to my local class library.

To get started, download the script, unpack it with gzip -d, add execute permissions with chmod +x and then type ./twitter.php commands for a usage summary. Some commands when called without arguments will present further usage summaries which will tell you how to use them. You'll probably want to start with something like:

./twitter.php update "Testing @stuartford's pitiful command line Twitter script."

Don't forget to add your Twitter and Bit.ly credentials to the top of the script otherwise it definitely won't work first time for you and I'd rather that didn't happen.

If you don't understand most of this post then this script probably isn't for you, sorry, it is what it is, no warranty, etc.

* I say it required some thought because it's rare that I make my code available for public use. I don't know why, because I believe I am a talented software developer, I guess it might be the slight family creative gene within me that might be forcing a behaviour equivalent to an artist who's perpetually reluctant to show people his work, who knows, that's one for the shrink's chair. Certainly the script isn't my best work, it grew out of something quick and dirty, and as any developer will tell you, anything that grows out of something quick and dirty will always be quick and dirty at its heart.

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As I mentioned in my previous post, instead of paying separate suppliers directly, who will insist that accounts held with them are in one name only, house-sharers all pay a fixed sum every month to Glide who then handle the rest. It makes for easy budgeting and reduces household administration which can otherwise be a bit bewildering to people who are living separately from their parents and not in university halls for the first time. Glide is currently unique in its market and by all accounts seems to be doing very well.

My job is, with another member of technical staff, to maintain and enhance the somewhat complex software system that runs the company, which does virtually everything from internal company administration, accounting and billing right through to live ordering and status checking of utilities from suppliers. As with any existing system being started on by a new developer I will need a suitable gear-up period, but I'm making great inroads into it and I reckon that by the end of the week I'll be able to make some initial recommendations as to procedure and future development.

It's really good to be doing what I do full time again. It occurred to me on Monday morning that the last time I got up in the morning to go to a full time job in an office somewhere my life was very different, better in some ways and worse in others. It's very different now, still a long way from ideal, but I do know that I'm going in the right direction to get to where I want to be. Doing what I am good at every day is a critically important step towards my goals rather than wasting time on the amount of sales and marketing that self employment demands of me, because I'm absolutely hopeless at both. I'm creative and technical, always have been, always will be.

I've been told to get the train in on Friday and not drive in. I can only assume that this means there's going to be some sort of new-starter party in the afternoon/evening. It's a young company and everyone who works there is around my age or younger, so I think it's a fair bet that that's what it's going to be.

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The company is unique in its market. It provides a service to landlords and tenants whereby all members of a shared rented household pay one fixed monthly sum for all their utilities, including gas, electricity, water, telephone and broadband. Primarily aimed at the student market where house-sharing is most common, the company uses its buying power to negotiate cheaper rates from utilities providers and passes a portion of those savings on to their customers. It's an exciting young company and I believe that I can make a difference to their operation and improve it through the ongoing enhancement of their existing software systems.

It's an 11 mile commute into central Birmingham every day, which is fine, it should take me around 45 minutes each way. I don't have to be in the office until 10.00am each day so that should allow me to avoid the worst of the traffic, which is ironically enough on the roads leading into and out of Sutton Coldfield rather than central Birmingham itself, once I'm past Sutton it becomes a lot easier. The equivalent train journey is less pleasant at 90 minutes in each direction including the two walks from the start and destination stations, so using the car is the way to go.

I'm looking forward to it.

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• Whilst Ubuntu could connect to various sorts of network drives (SMB and SFTP), accessing those drives was frustratingly slow and more often than not, access to them was not offered by applications when loading and saving data. This meant that I frequently had to copy a file from the network drive to the local filesystem, do whatever I needed to do to it, then copy it back. Most inconvenient.
• Ricey pointed out Crossover Office to me, which allows certain Windows applications to run under Linux, including Internet Explorer, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Adobe Photoshop. They all installed and ran, but were very slow due to the emulation engine under which they ran (WINE, one assumes). They also suffered from the inability to access my network drives.
• Crossover Office also did not support Adobe Illustrator or Quark Xpress, so I was still missing my vector graphics and DTP software.
• The whole system seemed slower. Memory usage wasn't a problem, so it wasn't swapping that was slowing it down. Programs seemed to take a long time to load and the processor fan always seemed to be working hard, even when I wasn't doing anything in particular. The kernel that shipped with Ubuntu didn't recognise my hyperthreading processor (probably because it wasn't an SMP kernel), although I don't know if that had anything to do with it. People call Windows a processor hog, but it seems to give my CPU much less of a hard time in comparison.
• The iTunes equivalent "RhythmBox" software really couldn't get its act together. Once I'd convinced it to recognise my MP3 stash, it then went overboard and indexed it twice. It would also frequently lock up, sending the CPU fan spinning into oblivion.
• The open source office suite OpenOffice.org shows promise, but did not properly display 80% of the office documents that I opened with it. This was particularly prevalent in the word processor; the spreadsheet software wasn't so bad.
• I had to go through a complex process just to get it to play MP3s. Apparently, because the MP3 codec isn't "free", it doesn't come with Ubuntu by default, and you have to install it separately, but that means adding unsupported repositories and other such nonsense. It seemed an unnecessary bit of red tape just so that I could play my Massive Attack album. I know all the arguments about "free" codecs versus those encumbered by patents, but this is supposed to be an out of the box OS, and what's one of the most popular things that people use their computers for these days? That's right.

Like I say, I really wanted this to work out for me, because Linux on the desktop has come a very long way from the days when you needed to be a sorcerer to even have a hope of getting a half-decent graphical desktop setup on a Linux machine, but unfortunately, it's still not come far enough, at least not for my day to day work requirements. I will however attempt to get it onto my laptop and use it on there. I only use my laptop for web browsing, e-mail and SSH access, and Ubuntu can do all that just fine.

Other good points that I really liked:

• Seems to support my laptop's wireless network adaptor out of the box, but I can't get it to display all the networks available, including my own. I expect I'll be able to do it via some command line tool, but I shouldn't have to do this.
• This isn't down to Ubuntu, but I was impressed at the ease of which I downloaded and installed the manufacturer supplied graphics card drivers, which allowed me to use my multi monitors with no fuss.
• 98% of the system management functions are available using the graphical user interface, which is good. There is, however, still the 2% remaining. I suspect that use of the command line will never be fully eliminated, since at the end of the day it's a UNIX-like operating system, and that means commands.
• I liked the range of "familiar" looking software that shipped with it. For example, evolution looks like Outlook, RhythmBox looks like iTunes and OpenOffice.org did its best to use the good parts of Microsoft Office's interface. The developers have made a very good attempt at trying to cover all the bases and not scare newcomers by inflicting unfamiliar software on them.
• The installation procedure is marvelous. It's quick, doesn't ask any complicated questions, and seems to have no trouble in detecting and installing drivers for most if not all hardware that's thrown at it. This is crucial if it wants to poach Windows users, newcomers won't accept anything less.

Ubuntu is a very solid, if relatively limited, operating system distribution, and it'll work a treat for the likes of my laptop and my Dad's PC. The developers have done a fantastic job, especially as it's been made available for free, and must keep up the good work.

Unfortunately, in my case, it can't support my day to day work, and I don't have endless time to hack it and tweak it, and even if I did I would still have to make compromises. I don't expect it to 100% look and act like Windows, not only is that unrealistic but it would completely defeat the object of offering an alternative operating system. Windows, for all its fault and reputation, is fast, responsive and very well supported in terms of software, and that's what I need, at least at work.

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It started when Dad's installation of Microsoft Word broke. He can still use it, but every time he loads it a series of dialogue boxes come up, along with Windows Installer. It's just a question of cancelling each one, but it's frustrating and confusing nonetheless. So I planned (and still will) go down south this weekend to generally update and fix his PC, since it's running Windows Millenium (something that we'd all rather forget about). I could just install XP, but I don't have any spare legal licenses for it, and neither do I have the same for Microsoft Office. Added to this, I thought I'd take the opportunity to replace the OS with something else, since installing XP would just give Dad more of the same thing, which he doesn't fully understand.

So at the weekend I posted a message on a techie mailing list to which I'm subscribed asking for suggestions about a possible parent-friendly Linux distro that could easily offer basic computing tasks, such as word processing, web browsing, e-mail, picture downloading and viewing, and printing from all of the above. The overwhelming response was, that if I didn't want to by a Mac, that Ubuntu Linux was a fair bet, so I downloaded the live CD.

I was well impressed with it. It worked out of the box on both my desktop PC and my laptop, even going so far as to kindly connecting to my neighbour's unsecured wireless network for me. So that's going on Dad's PC at the weekend. I can make it ultra-simple for him, and while obviously using any computer requires some thought, there will be less to confuse him. There'll also be the added benefit of not being susceptible to all the viruses and spyware on the Internet that target Windows machines.

The subject of which brings me to yesterday. Somehow, and I don't know why, my PC contracted a spyrus (malicious software that is both a virus and spyware). Don't ask me how, because I don't know. I am the most careful person in the world when it comes to running hooky software and my PC is well firewalled. It's the first time I've caught anything like this in all my years of using Windows (12+).

Try as I might with an armada of anti-virus and anti-spyware tools, I couldn't get rid of the damned thing. The cleaning software would detect it, delete it, and consider its job to be done, but then when I rebooted, it was back. I searched through the registry, the filesystem, everything. Then it started to download some of its virus and spyware mates, and before I knew it I had half a dozen different infections, popping up adverts on my screen, etc. One even installed a Sudoku game, which suddenly appeared in my start menu.

It's possible to spend days and days trying to eradicate this nonsense, as a colleague discovered to his peril some weeks ago, so I decided to cut my losses and dump the whole Windows installation. All my data is saved on various servers, so it's not a big deal to do that, assuming of course you can spare a day to reinstall. So I thought what the hell, let's give this Ubuntu a go, since I'm going to be inflicting it on Dad.

It's the latest beta version (Dapper Drake or something), but it seems pretty sorted. The setup process was quick and simple and asked no complicated questions. It downloaded TONS of updates, which is good, nothing wrong with that. I found manufacturer drivers for my graphics card and got dual monitors working, so that's good. All my other hardware was detected and installed automatically, with the exeception of the scanner, which I'll sort out later (if I can). There are software equivalents to Outlook, MSN, mIRC, SecureCRT, Word, Excel and iTunes, which is all perfectly acceptable. It reads and writes CDs and DVDs and can read my flash drive. It has drivers for and has successfully connected to the office printers.

There are however a number of reasons why I still consider this a trial and not a done deal. Firstly, I need to get to grips with the Gimp, since I am now deprived of Photoshop. I've dabbled with this in the past and I frankly didn't like it, so it's going to be a difficult learning curve. I also still need to test stuff in Internet Explorer, which means I'm going to need a permanent Terminal Services window open, which is a little inconvenient. I'm currently downloading the Linux version of Zend Studio, so the jury's out on that one at the moment, although I don't imagine there'll be much of a problem with it since it's written in Java and therefore will be the same everywhere.

There's also then the issue of software that I run less often, but still run nonetheless. I use Adobe Illustrator, and I know of no Linux vector graphics package, much less one that has the capabilities of Illustrator and can read and write Illustrator files. This is a potential problem. Following on from that, I sometimes also use Quark Xpress, and of course, that ain't never going near a Linux installation. So I am faced with having to reboot into Windows when I want to use such software, which will be a right royal pain, unless anyone's got any other suggestions?

I'll also have to reboot into Windows to play games, but I'm not unhappy about that. Overall, this has been an eye-opening experiment. The Ubuntu developers really have managed to create a Linux based operating system that works out of the box and that can be operated by normal humans. I'd never use it for a server of course, but then I'd never use Slackware as a workstation. Different Linux distributions are suited to different purposes, this is by no means news.

I'll let you know how I get on :)

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