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Long Weekend It's the May 2-4 Weekend, aka Victoria Day Weekend here in Canada. I don't have much to do this weekend so I thought I'd update my 'list of things to do' for the summer. Fix the Linux box I fixed the...

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Sick of it All I went to Telus today because I wanted to upgrade from my Blackberry Storm to a Nexus S. I had everything ready to make the transaction but apparently Telus didn't. When the girl working the store tried...

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A Less-Than-Democratic Era For Canada Election 41 brought a lot of change for the New Democratic Party. For the first time they became the official opposition in the House of Commons by securing more seats than the Liberals. The Liberals on...

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Linux 11.04 - Quick Review I spent a few hours today upgrading my HP G62 laptop from Ubuntu 10.04 to 11.04 (Natty Narwhal). The update was smooth and reliable. After working with the latest version of the Ubuntu OS I thought I'd...

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Linux Box is Back I managed to get my linux box back up and running yesterday. For what ever reason it was getting hung up on the GUI installer, so I burned a version of the alternate installer cd and gave that a boot....

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Long Weekend

Posted by D'Arcy Flynn | Posted on 22-05-2011

Category : Uncategorized

It’s the May 2-4 Weekend, aka Victoria Day Weekend here in Canada. I don’t have much to do this weekend so I thought I’d update my ‘list of things to do’ for the summer.

Fix the Linux box

I fixed the Linux box a few days after I broke it. I don’t really know what was going on with the install but not using the GUI version seemed to fix it. The box is up and running when I need it.

Turn the Linux Box into a server

After fixing the Linux box I installed LAMP and set up a MySQL database. I have some files hosted on it for localhost purposes but I haven’t yet completely set up the server. I also have to set up the SSH and SVN on the box.

Learn proper OOP with PHP

This one has been put on the back burner. I haven’t really had nor taken the time to sit down and study anything this summer. I still want to accomplish this before I go back to school in September and I have some code to reference as I work.

Learn enough Java to save my life

I think I’ve given up on this one. I just don’t have the drive to bother with learning Java right now. It might be nice down the road but I just don’t want to bother with it. I’m striking it from the list.

Read everyday this summer – at least a few pages of something on my shelf

I’ve done decently well with this goal this summer. I’ve been reading 1984 again. I haven’t read it since high school so I downloaded an e-book copy and have actually been reading it on my phone in my down time. Awesome book. As the summer progresses I intend to focus more on art related readings.

Ride my bike every week

This one has been tough with all of the rain we’ve been getting. And on the few sunny days we have I am usually dead tired after work, or sun burned and exhausted. I think I’ve missed out on one week so far. As the weather gets nicer this will become a lot easier to do and will become more frequent.

Road trip with some of my best friends (Nova Scotia?)

I don’t think this one is going to work out. Apparently I was the only one dedicated to the trip in the first place. It just goes to show you always can’t rely on other people. This is a big disappointment for me this summer.

Buy a DSLR

This one is still on the list of things to do. I have to make sure that I will have enough money for this and school, but I don’t think I can go another year without a solid DSLR.

Sick of it All

Posted by D'Arcy Flynn | Posted on 12-05-2011

Category : Ranting, Things I Hate

I went to Telus today because I wanted to upgrade from my Blackberry Storm to a Nexus S. I had everything ready to make the transaction but apparently Telus didn’t. When the girl working the store tried to process the transaction she was getting a 500 Internal Server Error because Telus does everything through their website. Since Telus was having issues, she took my number and offered to call me when the service was back up so I could buy my phone. I waited and waited and no call came.

I figured I’d try phoning the store to see if everything was sorted out but for the life of me I couldn’t find a phone number for the Telus store, only Futureshop. Eventually I decide to just call Telus directly. I made sure that they weren’t having any issues with their server and asked for the phone number for the shop. After a few minutes of silence they’re finally able to track it down so I call the store.

I explain that I had been in earlier that day and I was supposed to be called when the system was working again but didn’t get a call. They responded by saying that their system had been working for more than a few hours and that they were closing in 15 minutes. I asked if they’d mind keeping the store open 5 minutes longer since it would take me 20 minutes to get to the shop and it was their mistake for not calling and making it so difficult to get a hold of them at the store. I was rudely told they’d be closing right at what was now 13 minutes.

At that point I was pretty ticked off and decided to go to Futureshop. The clerk there gave me misleading information without checking to make sure what they were saying was correct. They’d informed me that I was only 12 days away from my 2 year mark in the phone contract and after two years the upgrade charges are dropped. I hadn’t been told this by any other Telus reps and asked her why that hadn’t come up before. She didn’t have an answer but I had no way of verifying this so I left in a fury at Telus. After I got home and did a bit of searching I found that the Futureshop clerk was wrong and that I’d have to foot the bill anyway. So now I’m at home and still without the new phone.

I am sick of companies who don’t stand by their products. I am sick of Telus and the way they’re willing to screw over customers only because they can. I am sick of the way that people are doing business. There is no compassion or caring for the customer anymore. There is a 9-5 an that’s it. Get in, get out and with no regard the clientele. I don’t blame this on just the individual working the store. I blame this on the company as a whole.

I read an interesting piece in the Globe and Mail today that discussed that lackadaisical workers are not hired, their created on the job. The people working the lowest jobs in the company don’t care because the company doesn’t care. Companies don’t hire lazy people, they hire people who are motivated. It’s the company, the way they treat their employees and the company’s attitude toward customers that influence the employee to become lazy and uncaring.

Business as we know it is dead.

A Less-Than-Democratic Era For Canada

Posted by D'Arcy Flynn | Posted on 02-05-2011

Category : Politics, Ranting, Things I Hate

Election 41 brought a lot of change for the New Democratic Party. For the first time they became the official opposition in the House of Commons by securing more seats than the Liberals. The Liberals on the other hand managed to secure less seats than any other election in history. The most devastating news came when Canada learned that Stephen Harper would win a majority government after his last two minority governments. While Harper’s third election win marks a milestone for Conservative history – that being the fact that the Conservatives have never won three consecutive elections – it also marks the date on our calendars when equality and social programs come face-to-face with Stephen Harper’s chopping block.

“Say goodbye to the long-gun registry and $2-per-vote subsidies for political parties now that Stephen Harper has full control over the levers of power in Ottawa.

And get ready for term limits on senators and greater foreign ownership of companies that offer telecom services such as cellphones.” – The Globe and Mail

We can definitely say goodbye to the long-gun registry since Harper’s been itching to ditch that “waste of tax payer’s money” for ages. Seeing the ~$2.00-per-vote subsidy is going to hurt every party except the Conservatives, the popular vote of the financially stable, who have never had an issue raising money for their party. It will be the other parties who will have trouble financing election campaigns and spreading their message. Just another stepping stone on the way to ruining the democratic voice for Harper’s government.

I also won’t be surprised when we start to see privatized health-care further creep it’s way into Canada… because that clearly works in other countries, right?

 

Linux 11.04 – Quick Review

Posted by D'Arcy Flynn | Posted on 29-04-2011

Category : Linux, Tutorials

I spent a few hours today upgrading my HP G62 laptop from Ubuntu 10.04 to 11.04 (Natty Narwhal). The update was smooth and reliable. After working with the latest version of the Ubuntu OS I thought I’d write down a but of a review of my first impressions as well as leave a few tips to help other users avoid issues with the new interface.

Unity Launcher

The first thing you’ll notice after logging into Natty Narwhal is that there is no longer a toolbar across the bottom of the screen. Ubuntu 11.04 uses the Unity Launcher which by default is located to the left side of the screen. When only viewing your desktop or windows that don’t take up the whole of the screen, your launcher will remain in view. If you maximize a window the launcher hides itself out of view to give you as much screen real estate as possible. Hovering your cursor over the left side of the screen will reveal the launcher.

I find the luncher extremely useful to give that quick access to apps that I use the most. It scrolls to allow more apps than would normally fit on the screen, and unlike the famous Mac dock, the launcher shows you how many windows of each application is open, if any.

Issues

I had an issue with the Unity Launcher itself freezing after minimizing a window in Google Chrome. Minimized windows now hide themselves in their Launcher button. When the launcher froze I couldn’t access the minimized window. Opening Terminal and using xkill I was able to force quit the Launcher. It seemed to load instantly, it didn’t even go missing off of the screen and was back working again.

Menu Panels

Clicking the Ubuntu icon in the top left of the screen will launch the menu panels. That’s right, no more drop down menus. You can browse all of your installed applications, search for a specific one, or browse through the classic categories. The experience is similar to that the of the iPhone’s folders (which are planned for the Mac OS X 10.7 release). While I find this to be less useful than the dropdown menus for efficiency sake, it is a bit of eye candy, and coupled with the Launcher isn’t a huge issue.

What I found confusing here was after just installing Natty Narwhal I wanted to quickly go through the old System dropdown and edit some settings in the preferences panel. To get there you must now follow Ubuntu Logo > More Apps > Dropdown (on right) > Themes & Tweaks > See 40 More Results then select the application I need. Following the same steps to System will bring you to the old Administration panel apps.

Edit: After a little searching, I found the System Settings option in the User Menu in the top right of the screen (the Power icon). This will load a panel of all of the old Preference Panel and Administration panel applications in a much easier to access place.

LibreOffice

The addition of LibreOffice as the default office environment feels very Mac-OS-like, except of course that iWork must be purchased separately from Mac OS. The suite is essentially the same platform as OpenOffice.org so you won’t have to worry about getting used to a new office environment.

Real-Estate

I am extremely happy to see the removal of the bottom tool-bar new implementation of the top tool-bar in Natty Narwhal. Maximizing a window pushes it’s title bar with the Close, Minimize and Maximize buttons into the existing tool-bar. This increases the screen real-estate even more on both edges of the screen. Coupled with the hiding Launcher the screen becomes nearly 100% usable application space.

Issues

I ran into one issue with this feature when I was messing around with the CompizConfig application. If you turn off the Window Decoration settings your apps will lose their menu bar when not maximized. You won’t be able to move the window, maximize, minimize or close that window without quitting the program. For ease of use I would highly recommend leaving Window Decoration on.

Conclusion

At first impressions, Natty Narwhal appears to be an excellent release of Ubuntu. While there are a few features you will learn to love while you get over the old interface – if you stuck with the default – it is important to note some of the small issues. I’m going to enjoy this release and I’m sure you will too.

Linux Box is Back

Posted by D'Arcy Flynn | Posted on 25-04-2011

Category : Art History, Uncategorized

I managed to get my linux box back up and running yesterday. For what ever reason it was getting hung up on the GUI installer, so I burned a version of the alternate installer cd and gave that a boot. It worked despite taking quite a few more steps. After installation I had to download the SMC 2802w v2 driver and install that using ndiswrapper, which had to be downloaded and transfered to the box, since this was all for the WiFi PCI. It seemed to be working fine, so after a security update I installed LAMP which is easy enough to do.

Everything is working well with the exception of my keyboard. It’s an old wireless Microsoft keyboard that I found laying around the house. It’s so worn down that the wireless only works from about two feet away from the receiver, and given the size of my workstation and the positioning of the tower, I am basically typing on the box to get it to work.

Next I’m going to be setting up SSH and SVN and maybe looking into DNS as well. Eventually I’d like to be able to manage the box as a server for my portfolio website. Oh, summer dreams!

Books Books Books

I think today I’ll end up cracking open an old textbook since I have to really spend this summer focusing on my art knowledge and awareness as I prepare for Specialized Studio in the fall semester. I’m not sure which one I’ll start with, maybe a bit of David Hopkins on Modern Art? We’ll see…

Missing Two Months

Posted by D'Arcy Flynn | Posted on 24-04-2011

Category : Uncategorized

The past two months have been a blur with so much happening all at once. As you can tell, I never got around to making a post with all of the insanity. What happened? Well, I had my opening for ‘Who Says Light Can’t?”, helped out with Guelph’s Juried Art Show, finished off the second half of my semester’s projects, and I’m sure there were a bunch of little things I don’t recall.

This past week I cleaned up computer and set up a linux box for me to mess around on while I’m at home, however, a power outage last night seems to have caused something to go horribly wrong as now it won’t boot into ubuntu and reinstalling has been – so far – unsuccessful.

Having been at home now for a week I’ve been thinking about projects to keep me busy during the summer. There’s a lot I want to do this summer and with work it’s going to be tough, but I think I can fit it all in. I figure I’m going to make a list of things I’m planning on doing and I’ll blog about them and cross off the list as I go.

May – September 2011

  • Fix the Linux box
  • Turn the Linux Box into a server
  • Learn proper OOP with PHP
  • Learn enough Java to save my life
  • Read everyday this summer – at least a few pages of something on my shelf
  • Ride my bike every week
  • Road trip with some of my best friends (Nova Scotia?)
  • Buy a DSLR

Alright, that’s the list for now. I’m going to go regroup and maybe get started sorting out this Linux issue. Thanks for dropping by.

Who Says Light Can’t?

Posted by D'Arcy Flynn | Posted on 22-02-2011

Category : Painting, Photography, Sculpture

My show “Who Says Light Can’t?” with fellow artist Sarah Sienna is up at the Zavitz Gallery is up until Friday, February 25. You can find more information about it on my artist’s website darcyflynn.com.

Coming Soon: New Work

Posted by D'Arcy Flynn | Posted on 04-02-2011

Category : Blogging, Painting, Sculpture, Uncategorized, Websites

I’ve been busy these last three weeks with school and getting some new work done. Between school and getting my paintings moving for my upcoming show I haven’t been able to find much time to blog. This semester is going to be interesting to say the least and is going to push my creative bounds a little further than I’m used to.

My studio courses this semester consist of Special Topics in Painting, Special Topics in Sculpture, and Interactive Media. The Special Topics courses are studios being taught by artists that are hired on with the intention of teaching only that course. The class focuses on a single topic in the umbrella practice which falls under the artist’s own specialty.

Special Topics in Painting

This year we’re being taught by Sarah Cale. Sarah currently lives in Toronto, she earned her BFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 2003 and an MFA from the University of Guelph in 2005. Her focus is on the intersection of art and collage. With this course we are focusing on collaging with materials and imagery and painting from the collage.

Having never been a preteen girl, collaging simply blows my mind. I think that being the only guy in the class might have been a sign. But this is where pushing my creative bounds will come in. I collage all of the time in Photoshop. My digital work almost always involves collage in some manner. I think the most difficult part for me is allowing myself to accept the images as they exist from the source material instead of always wanting to alter it like I would be able to digitally.

I’m just not completely sold on this whole “collage is everywhere” idea. That’s kind of like saying, “disease is everywhere”. Well, yeah, where there are people there are going to be diseases. At the same time where there is art there is going to be multiple sources of inspiration. Collage seems to have ballooned into an umbrella term that can arguably applied to everything and for me, nothing.

Special Topics in Sculpture

This course is being taught by Sally McKay, a Toronto artist, curator, art writer and scholar with a long-standing interest in the connections between art and science. She is studying Neuroaesthetics at York University where she is pursuing her PhD.

This course involves more studying than it seems to actually involve sculpture. We focus a lot on readings based around neuroscience and everything having to do with the brain and how it relates to how we practice and perceive art. Our first work is a sculpture of our brain. How we describe our brain is up to us. We are free to choose materials, scale, colour, etc. The only stipulation is that the brain relates to ourself and describes itself as our brain. How do you describe your own brain when you can’t see it? How would you describe a brain if you’d never seen one?

The timing of neuroaesthetics as the special topic for this sculpture course couldn’t be better. Not only am I taking Introduction to Human Physiology, but in the past few months my work has become more and more influenced by modern science and the scientific method. This class has a lot of potential and spurs a lot of interesting debates, but we lack a serious amount of sculpting and do a lot of reading. It has, however, influenced my work in other classes in a positive way.

Interactive Media

This course is being taught by Anna Cox who (and I’m going to take this straight from the LCVA website) “before her career in academia, Cox was an award-winning multimedia designer for an advertising agency in Chicago. Cox earned her B.A. from Ohio State University and her M.F.A. from Southern Illinois University.”

This course is completely off the wall in the best way possible. The class has been left to build two Android apps by the end of the semester. We are the ‘company’ and will be releasing the app on our company’s website at the end of the semester. We created a design team and a development team and are largely self driven. In class we spend a lot of time discussing the book, “You Are Not A Gadget” which is a great read if you’ve never heard of it. I suggest reading it very closely and discussing it with others. The discussions surrounding this book are epic to say the least.

Switching to Windows

Posted by D'Arcy Flynn | Posted on 15-01-2011

Category : Blogging, Ranting

I haven’t had much time to write in the past few days. I’ve been back in classes for the past week and it’s been extremely hectic balancing all of the work being thrown at me lately while trying to keep working on my upcoming show and dealing with life.

Rest In Peace MacBook

This past week, my 2007 MacBook, the same one I’ve been using since first year of University took a turn for the worst. From what I’ve been able to source out, the inverter has gone on the machine which causes the screen to not be able to handle power.  No power = No backlighting = Useless Laptop. Well, almost. I’m going to hook up a monitor to it and keep running my Mac as a desktop at home.

The New HP

To replace the mobility of my MacBook, I went out and bought an HP laptop, the G62. It’s nothing fancy but it does the job, has a good amount of memory and hard drive and will do more than get the job done. It also runs Dawn Of War, so I’m happy.

Getting used to the new laptop these last few days has been quite a struggle. The first big difference is the fact that Windows, of course, has the Minimize, Maximize and Close buttons in the top right of the window, instead of the top left, which always felt more natural to me (even when I used to work on Windows). There’s also the fact that clicking the Close button exits the program if it’s the only window you have open for that application, which bothers me more than it probably should. I find it a little inconvenient is all I’m saying.

What confuses me, or more so my hands, the most is the keyboard. The spacing is different than the Mac keyboard, which is really the only keyboard with it’s spacing. I realize that most laptops conform to “standard” key spacing and Macs are technically weird in this sense, but it is tough to get accustomed to nonetheless. What messes with me more is that there are shortcut buttons and unnecessary all around the keyboard: Page Up, Page Down, Delete, End, Home, and a key that goes straight into HP Help. Why do I need those? I don’t really use them since my MacBook didn’t have them, and before that I never really used them.

On the left of the keyboard are a few shortcuts to Calculator, Print, Browser, Media Player and Email. They aren’t often a problem but I have a tendency to hit the Media Player button at very inopportune times, which launches it in front of what ever I am working on. It’s quite annoying.

The Left Shift Key

The one thing that I will never understand about all of these Windows based laptops being produced is why they are all so determined to shrink the size of the left Shift Key. It is possibly the most important key on the keyboard, since beginning a new sentence is almost impossible without it if you’re right handed. You don’t want to use the right Shift Key, which is much larger in case you miss and hit Enter which could have some undesirable results (submitting a form by accident, or running an application, etc). Plus I find that the keys letters I begin sentences with are often times on the right side of the keyboard so it’ makes more sense to keep that hand free to peck it out quickly.

It Will Take Time

It will definitely take a lot of practice to break all of my old habits with Macs. I’m not a ‘fanboy’ by an means but I do find them much more reliable for what I use a computer for. I’m going to miss the apps I had downloaded on my MacBook. I will also have to go about installing all sorts of software that I use everyday to get this laptop in a place where it is of actual use to me.

I’ll let you know how it all works out. Maybe I’ll do a bit on the applications I’ve found most comparable to those I used on my MacBook.

Greyhound, I’m Not Happy With You

Posted by D'Arcy Flynn | Posted on 07-01-2011

Category : Blogging, Ranting, Things I Hate

Tomorrow I’ll be heading to Toronto to buy some art supplies the cheapest way I know how; from Aboveground Art Supplies. To get to Toronto I need to wake up extra early tomorrow morning and catch the 9:30AM Greyhound from Downtown. I hate showing up at the terminal and taking a chance that there will be space on the bus so I always buy my tickets in advance. The less surprises – the better.

Where it Began to go Wrong

I was on the Greyhound website figuring out travel times so that I could get into the city early enough that I could go shopping, visit my sister and still get on a bus to be back in Guelph at a reasonable hour to catch up with some friends I haven’t seen in a few weeks. The website was working fine up until I made it to the checkout. I was given an error message saying that due to traffic volume on the website they couldn’t accept my purchase. There was also a line saying if I had any questions I could call at 1-800-365-7147. So I did. I needed to get these tickets and I needed to get it sorted out tonight. It’s too late to go to the terminal, so I called.

After a short wait, maybe two or three minutes I’m connected with somebody who while technically speaks english, doesn’t really speak english and it made it even harder for us to understand each other over the poor service I was receiving from Telus (I’ll save that for another post). I was asked about whether I could buy the tickets over the phone because the website wasn’t working; something I made very clear to be the reason I was calling. He started getting my information. I had to spell everything to him because he didn’t really speak english. About 10 minutes into him taking my information, for the record the billing info says Caledon, ON, not Calgary, AB – something I was amazed he mixed up, he finally decides to inform me that booking tickets over the phone is subject to a $6.00 charge.

Wait, What Was That Greyhound?

Yes, an extra $6.00 charge for picking up the phone and talking to a representative who I could barely understand. I was being asked to pay for the alternative service because their website wasn’t operational.

How does this make sense? Where is the good business sense in this?

To say the least I am extremely disappointed by Greyhound in this situation. If your accessible service isn’t accessible, the second option for passengers is going to be the phone. I would have expected a better business to take responsibility for their services and waive such a fee because their servies were failing.

So I Called Back

In hopes of getting a hold of somebody who spoke better english and had an answer, I called them back. This proved to be completely useless. I was greeted by more people who couldn’t really speak english and told that the $6.00 charge was for customers who wanted to purchase tickets over the phone.

After explaining to them and their managers that I didn’t want to buy the tickets over the phone, that I intended to buy them online and that it was their poor quality service that was causing this inconvenience. They assured me that I had to pay $6.00 anyway and if I had any complaints I should contact Customer

Service. I called Customer Service and it turns out they are closed – way to be Greyhound, great Customer Service.

After calling them a third time and explaining to them that I didn’t have time to talk to Customer Service since I would be using the tickets first thing tomorrow morning, they assured me that there was no way they could refund my $6.00 or my tickets over the phone and instead I would have to waste my time tomorrow morning doing that at the station.

So the dilemma stands. Do I try to get my money back at the station for this horrible service that I have so lacklusterly been provided and try to catch a GO Bus tomorrow instead? Or do I just take this $6.00 charge lying down?

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