Bend in the Weather

New addition to the family

mbottrell@gmail.com () — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:49:00 +1000

Well it's time to introduce our newest member of the family.

We picked up Nina this week from a local Pet Rescue as we were looking for a companion for Duke (our other dog).

If you are wanting a pet, check out your local Pet Rescue. Saving a pet ensures it's one less pet that isn't put down unnecessarily. Most rescues do behaviour testing prior to putting them up for adoption and will also ensure they are vaccinated, spayed and micro-chipped and registered.

We met and instantly fell in love with Nina! The picture on the left is the one that they had on her advertisement.

She's an 18-month-old Blue Heeler/Cross and needed a new home. After talking with Pauline we both agreed that getting a dog from a Pet Rescue was a better option than going and buying a new puppy from a pet store. We also weren't so keen on a puppy as the extra work involved in keeping those naughty doggies out of trouble! We also knew that young puppies also find homes much easier than older dogs.

She's resting quietly at present (much to the annoyance of Duke who would love nothing better to do then jump and play all day with her!). The main reason is she's only recently come out of surgery for being spayed, micro-chipped and vaccinated. So a few more days restricting her jumping or running and she'll be right to go.

So far Nina has settled in extremely well. It's been a pleasant surprise to find she's already house-trained and let's us know when nature calls. We'll undertake some basic obedience training but generally she's pretty good already.

As you can see, she's settling in well to her new surroundings!

Building Progress - House slab laid!

mbottrell@gmail.com () — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:11:00 +1000

The last two weeks has seen some rapid movement on the building of our new house.
For those that have missed the updates, feel free to have a read.

Yesterday (Tuesday 24^th June) the builders laid down the house slab.

The house shape is much easier to make out now, and is quite recognisable when it's compared against the house plan or the electrical plan (which includes the modifications to the base plan we've made).

It was absolutely freezing down in Bannockburn today and reached a whooping 12^oC maximum. Why did I mention this? Well... even though it's quick drying cement used in slab creation, it does require some heat to actually dry the slab out!

Whilst it did eventually set, it took longer than expected. You can tell how cold it is in the photos (you'll notice the builders standing around a small fire trying to get warm!).

The slab was laid around 7:30am, but the builders were still on site mid-afternoon levelling and trying to ensure it set correctly. The boxing had to be removed to help speed up the drying process.

The 'gap' on the left hand side half way down is the location of the alfresco. This will have a concrete base added after lockup and is done as a separate step to stop cracking that would be visible.

We're going to lay exposed aggregate in that area, that will match the footpaths and driveway. The benefit of exposed aggregate is that it is not as slippery as traditional concrete (and personally I think it looks better!)

If you aren't aware what exposed aggregate is all about, click on the image for a larger view. Basically it exposes the pebbles in the concrete mix, and gives it a 'worn' look.... consider it the 'acid wash of jeans' for concrete.

Once again a big thanks to my folks for heading out to Bannockburn and taking the shots. It's great to see the progress being made. We won't be able to get down their until the weekend (work committments and the like restricting a mid-week journey). Google Maps reports it's about 67.1 km about 1 hour 4 mins one way from our current residence to the property. So it's pretty much a 2 hour round trip... just a tad too long for a lunch time visit!

All good though, and we've made it to the first milestone.

The slab will be left to settle until this time next week when the frame will go up. Hopefully the weather holds over the next few weeks until we get to the lock-up stage. It is expected to be windy the next few days, which will assist in drying out the slab even further.

Pauline has rendered a depiction of what the final house will look like... though it's changed slightly as the roof colour had to change (the colour we chose was unavailable). We went with Woodland Grey instead. We've seen this colour used on other houses and it does come up quite nicely.

FYI: The bricks aren't that large as show in the picture, it's just been done that way so we could see how the brickwork would look on the place compared to other colour selections we had made.

If all goes according to plan we should be moving in mid Sept/October. Pauline and I are a little more realistic and we will be happy if it happens prior to Christmas.

Firefox 3 - What The?!

mbottrell@gmail.com () — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:40:00 +1000

It seems various people are getting certificates for helping the Mozilla team set a new world record for the number of downloads in a day.

It's always interesting to see some of the organisations that made it possible!

Tip: Click on the image to see a larger version.

House Building progress

mbottrell@gmail.com () — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:41:00 +1000

I recently posted pics of our new house getting built getting under-way with the site preparation.

Things have progressed reasonably well (albeit in between some rain - which we do actually need, but preferably after we get to the lock-up stage!)

So here are some photos over the last week.

Water, Plumbing and Electrical
The water to the property goes in and we officially have a tap! Woot!
In addition, we have had the underground electrical and plumbing go in.

Foundations
This week we saw the foundations dug out and boxing up ready for the slab to be laid.

The boxing up was finished up today (Friday). It's been covered up for the weekend as we've been getting light rain all week (and likely over the weekend). At this stage the slab is scheduled to go down on Tuesday. Speaking to the builder, we'll let that sit for about a week, and commence building frame the following week.

It's great to see the actual house start forming from a drawing to something physical now. The slab will make a big difference as the shape/size of the place will become more evident.

We're scheduled for a mid-Sept finish, though I suspect we'll run over, and we'll be happy if we're in before Christmas. Hopefully the next few weeks the weather can hold until we at least get to lock-up as not to delay the builders.

Thanks again to Mum and Dad for snapping the shots for us!

Firefox 3 - Come break a world record!

mbottrell@gmail.com () — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:25:00 +1000

At 3:00am AEST on Wednesday 18^th of June will herald the release of Firefox 3.

It's a big jump ahead from the heady days of Firefox 1 and Firefox 2 days. This version includes over 15,000 enhancements from the 2.x series. It's faster, funkier and doesn't eat anywhere near the memory Firefox 2 did!

The guys over at SpreadFirefox are attempting to set a world record, with the most downloads in a given 24 hour period. You too can be part of it!

I'm currently running one of the Release Candidates, and I've found it brilliant, all my favourite add-ons are now working flawlessly in it.

So help spread the world, Australia has around 30% of it's Internet users using Firefox these days. So people do understand and utilise the crazy fox based browser.

Moving more people off Internet Explorer will also ensure that Australian websites that wish to remain 'visible' will also start writing websites that are browser agnostic and follow the W3C standards (something IE only websites break heavily).

Microsoft claim that they are going to be moving fully to standards compliance with IE8, but don't hold your breath. We've been hearing that for years. As long as nasty ActiveX still hangs around like a bad fart in a crowded elevator it's not going to be compliant (or safe for that matter). And yes, IE8 will ship with ActiveX.

So hop to it! Pledge to download Firefox 3 on Wednesday, and become a World Record Holder!

Stop whining about Wine printing!

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 02:02:00 +1000

Wine is a way to run native Windows applications without Windows.

The Wine project have been able to replicate the APIs required to run quite a number of applications under their environment.

It's one way you can run your legacy Windows applications under your Linux desktop.

I daily run Wine for a number of applications for business:

Windows Lotus Notes for my office Email/Office Databases - it's not as crappy as the native Linux one then.
Internet Explorer 6 for those pesky websites that refuse to run without IE (many customer client websites).
Microsoft Office for some complicated files that get garbled by OpenOffice (but that number is decreasing with every release!)

Other good news about Wine is that 1.0 is just about out the door. (Don't be fooled by the low number - these guys are perfectionists, and it's been a long, long running project!)

Here's the blurb off their website:

Friends, vintners, penguins, lend me your ears:

We come not to praise Windows, but to celebrate our increasing independence from it.

The final release candidate for Wine 1.0 will appear this Friday (13th), and barring catastrophe, Wine 1.0 itself will be released a few days later.

I recently blogged about how hard it is for many small businesses to move off Windows. One way they can (particularly those that are on pre-Vista desktops and don't wish to go to Vista) is to utilise Wine for those legacy business Windows applications that need to run.

This way they can keep their functionality, but move to a more secure, less restrictive (licensing) operating system and a better and more richer computing experience in my opinion.

I recently attempted to see if I could run MYOB under Wine. Currently Pauline is stuck on Windows, due to her requirement to run MYOB to do our company books. MYOB ran under Wine without a hitch.

Well... until I went to print. It went off to the dark printing gods and spat out an empty plain page -- no matter what I printed. And thus is the reason for this blog post.

— – — – —

If anyone does business accounting, you realise printing is a key feature. Many hectares of forests from the Amazon are destroyed each year keeping up with the legal requirement of keeping financial records. (Personally we print a lot to PDF -- but still, under Wine this was failing for us!).

Scroll through many Linux forums/help sites and you'll hear people whining and complaining about printing under Wine. It seems to have also increased with the introduction of CUPS. From what I could see people where having problems printing to a physical printer most of the time, even though their CUPS printers correctly are represented and available in Wine. (This is exactly what I was seeing -- just blank pages printed).

Unfortunately this was going to be a show-stopper. Without a way to print (paper or electronically) for MYOB the idea was dead in the water. I didn't want to run Windows XP in a virtual machine (more on that in my next post over the following days).

I decided to sit down and take a bit of a fiddle (that's a technical term!)

MYOB running under Wine

Really -- if CUPS-PDF didn't work, nor did my native printers attached; even a Postscript file would be sufficient (I could then feed that into ps2pdf or something similar if I really wanted it in PDF format for Emailing, or just print the Postscript file directly to the printer).

I found that within the printing application I could create a virtual printer that printed a postscript file directly to a file in Linux. Okay, that works fine under Linux... Now the big test, did it print fine with MYOB running under Wine?

I could see the printer fine (as I could with all the other CUPS printers previously). I bit my bottom lip and hit print. Low and behold... a working report!

Even better I could link the Postscript printer to the CUPS-PDF printer and it would convert it auto-magically into a PDF for me.

I since tested a range of applications under Wine and they all seem to be printing.

So if you need to print in Wine and don't want a headache, try the local Postscript virtual printer hack. It works well.

For those that want to replicate it, here is a series of pictures showing the Postscript printer properties.

And if you still don't believe.... here is some sample print jobs:

So have fun and happy printing from within Wine.

Improving the Gnome terminal

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:46:00 +1000

I've been hearing ramblings on a few blogs about a little app called Terminator. (No it isn't Arnie hitting ya desktop), but in fact a terminal program that can do split screens and a bunch of other funky stuff.

Here's the blurb straight from the Terminator website:

Terminator is an attempt to maximise useful space on a given desktop for terminals. Im a sysadmin by trade, so I live in ssh sessions and thus terminals. An extra line here and there over all those hours seems like its worth trying for.

Much of the behaviour of Terminator is based on GNOME Terminal, and we are adding more features from that as time goes by, but we also want to extend out in different directions with useful features for sysadmins and other users. If you have any suggestions, please file wishlist bugs!

It can be found in the Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy) repositories, and the Debian Sid repositories.

If you're running those distros, you can just click here to install terminator

Those still stuck on Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy) can also install it. Just add the following lines your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome-terminator/ubuntu gutsy main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome-terminator/ubuntu gutsy main restricted universe multiverse

Once done run the following: sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install terminator

NB: For Gutsy users, you will get a warning that there is no authentication on the package. As it's from the ppa area, that's quite normal.

The next version 0.9 is supposed to also have tabs and some other nice goodies like drag n drop... (take a peep over here)

One thing I've found is that I like the extra real-estate. No annoying menu to get in the way. I use a lot of keyboard short cuts (like Ctrl_+, Ctrl_- and Ctrl_0 to resize the font sizes). I've found most of the Gnome shortcuts work.

Even better, it seems to be less of a memory hog than what the default Gnome Terminal is.

The developer is breaking the bonds that hold it to Gnome, so in theory you should be able to use it on other Window Managers like KDE, Enlightenment, etc in the not too distant future.

And now, for the sample screen shot!

Well it appears I'm hooked. I'm looking forward to 0.90 but for mind, the current version does all I need. (Small, efficient and easier to view multiple screens in one window).

If you haven't used it, give it a try you'll be glad you did!

House building underway!

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:23:00 +1000

I have previously mentioned we're building a new house (both here and here).

Well on Tuesday the building commenced!
Not much to date, but they have done the site preparation, and will be digging the foundations and hopefully laying the concrete slab this week.

Obviously this will be dependent on the actual weather. This week isn't too promising, but next week is! Hopefully a 'few showers' means that work can still progress and that they are only light.

Wednesday A few showers. 16^oC
Thursday Showers developing. 16^oC
Friday A few showers. 16^oC
Saturday Becoming fine. 14^oC
Sunday Fine. 15^oC
Monday Fine. 16^oC
Tuesday Fine. 16^oC

My folks were out at the block (they are also building out at Bannockburn themselves).
They took some photos to show us the progress being made. (Thanks Dad and Mum!) You can click on each image for an enlarged view.

Front of the block.
Left hand side.

Front of the block.
Right hand side.

Back of the block.
Left Hand Side.

Back of the block.
Right Hand Side.

It's great to finally have something happening on the block. It's a little frustrating doing the paperwork dance and it was November when we purchased the block. So just over 6 months later the physical work can now start.

All going well... we'll be in September - October of this year. Truthfully, we'll be happy to be in for this Christmas, anything earlier will be a bonus.

I'll post more photos as the building progresses. We'll be heading down to Bannockburn this weekend and will look at taking more shots, hopefully the plumbing and slab are done by then.

For those that want a reminder of what we're building, here is a copy of the houseplan (well we've made some minor adjustments and the carport is actually a double garage!).

We've just finished the actual final electrical and the network plans for the house.

On top of that we also think we've found the water tank we'll be putting in a 10,200L tank off the side of the house. After we move in I'll probably put another 5,000-8,000L tank off the garden shed. The smaller tank will be used to supply a vegie garden, whilst the larger one will be used for some lawn and drinking water.

I've already been doing a lot of smart planning for the garden/lawns. We'll be laying Sir Walter lawn (or similar) - which is drought tolerant but vibrant in colour.

I'll also be planting a native Australian garden. My parents gave me a wonderful book about Native Australian gardens and designs for my birthday earlier in the year. It is amazing at the rich colour and diversity that is available to us all using our own natives.

It's well worth a read for anyone considering how to reduce their water requirements but keeping a colorful and lively looking garden. Many of our own native plants show the beauty of the traditional European gardens we have traditionally planted. It's not all about mulch and grey coloured foliage!

I've actually requested that all the site excavations from the property be left on site and will be incorporating this into the design of our garden. I'll be creating undulating garden beds, with heavier water thirsty plants at the bottom whilst hardier and less water hungry plants positioned on the top of these mounds. Using this method I can use the 'natural' layout of the land to deliver the right amount of water to the various plants (either with rain or watering).

I think over the next 10 years we'll see more frustrated gardeners who have given up trying to grow a European style garden (without it dying off or turning brown) move across to this style. Like many gardens it can be setup relatively maintenance free, or not. This really depends on the type of garden and time you have available. I'll probably plant for something in the middle. The idea of getting off the computer and doing something with nature is quite appealing.

Visit Disney World - in the luxury of your own home

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 02:28:00 +1000

We all enjoy a good holiday. Getting the time to take one always seems to be the problem for me however. I think I may have just found the answer...

If you're like me you grew up watching The Wonderful World of Disney at 6:30pm every Sunday. Here we marveled at cartoons of Mickey, Goofy and other great Disney characters. (So much so, many the hostnames on my home network are now named after Disney characters! ).

It also introduced us to classic 'childrens' movies like Herbie, 101 Dalmatians, Mary Poppins and Alice in Wonderland.

It's probably the dream of every child to visit the magical place of Disneyland or DisneyWorld.

With the help of Google you can now explore DisneyLand without leaving your chair!
Google has produced a 3D interactive representation of Disneyland inside Google Earth.

If you've got Google Earth installed try the following:

Once Google Earth loads, search for "Disney World".
Click on the golden Disney Mickey Ears - This will load an information window.
In the info window click on Show Disney World in 3D.

The 3D world contains over 1,500 3D models and will let you explore right through the park. The models are highly detailed and a sight to behold!

It's nearly as good as being there!
Just think - no more queues for rides, no long-haul flight getting there, and the park is now open 24 hours for you.

Have fun exploring!

The difficulty of Aussie small businesses adopting Linux

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:29:00 +1000

There are many reasons people are stuck on Windows.

For small businesses the main reason is their accounting software.
Like it or not, since the introduction of GST and BAS the days of the shoe-box accounting have disappeared. Every business that wants to keep accurate financial records requires an computerized accounting system.

In Australia, The introduction of GST and BAS has made it difficult for these same people to move over to Linux.
The two most popular Small Business Accounting packages are MYOB and QuickBooks. Both products support the Australian market and handle submissions to the ATO.

Many small businesses look for software that can handle base accounting (less then 25 invoices a week) and an integrated simple payroll module that can pay their employees (1-5 typically).

Both QuickBooks and MYOB operate as closed-source commercial software that runs on Windows (and on Mac - in the case of MYOB). They also integrate heavily into Microsoft Office.

Both business models expect customers to fork our between $500 - $800 for the initial purchase, and anywhere from $200- $500 annually to get 'updates'. For any small business this is a hefty investment just to keep up with the legal requirements of running their business. Calling for support can also attract additional fees on top of the yearly retainer.

As such, many are fearful to move on, but have a love-hate relationship with their accounting software provider. They feel cheated and ripped off (and rightly so). This duopoly has created a handsome cash-cow for both software makers.

The current extortion model used by MYOB and Quicken is best explained by Turbo Cash's explaination (a GPL Windows Accounting package). Unfortunately TurboCash is Windows software and contains no Australian payroll module.

Unfortunately, I am yet to see an OSS Linux accounting software that handles all the features required for an Australian business:

Handles Australian Taxation - including GST and BAS reporting/lodging
Handles Australian Payroll - including PAYG and Superannuation

The introduction of both these two options would see thousands migrate off Windows (it's often the only reason cited for not running Linux), and adopt a new accounting package.

There is both Ledger-SQL and LedgerSMB (a fork of the former) that handle accounting and can be customized to handle GST. Yet, they don't do anything to address BAS reporting/lodging or have a payroll module. As such, both are unsuitable for the Australian SMB market without further heavy lifting.

Their is commercial software like SAGE AccPac available, yet it's quite expensive and more geared towards a medium sized business and thus out of the price range for most small businesses.

One OSS project that did look indeed promising was SYMBOL (Surf Your Money Books On Line). It was written by an accountant from Western Australia and licensed under the BSD license.

I have been in Email discussion with the developer Edward Metcalfe, but it appears he has now moved on from the project and as such the project has stalled. Looking at the CVS repository the last update was unfortunately 13 months ago.

However, the software is indeed functional and delivers on the two items listed above (Australian Taxation/Payroll). Whilst you would need to update the PAYG tax tables (no real show-stopper), it should do the job admirably. ComputerWorld actually ran an article on SYMBOL in Februrary 2007.

Those interested in SYMBOL, will find it is a web-based application so accounting can be down via a regular browser (making it suitable on either Mac/Windows/Linux clients) It runs on a PostgreSQL backend and uses Perl/CGI for the front-end. It also is multi-user based. (One thing software like MYOB and Quicken charge an arm and a leg for!)

The fear of running SYMBOL though in it's current form is that it is unmaintained. It's likely the current government or subsequent ones will indeed look at overhauling the payroll and corporate tax systems (as opposed to just an implementation of the Goods and Services Tax). This would mean that any software a small business adopts would need to address these modification.

The ATO has worked to provide great documentation on the complex tax scheme we have in Australia for software developers. Their Software Developers Website gives test case scenarios and formulas to write compliant and competing software.

I'm in two minds:

Do I run SYMBOL and either start maintaining it or fork it?
Do I use a lot of the program logic, and spawn a completely new project?

Ideally I would love to see a AJAXed based web-version of the application with a modern interface using either the Yahoo UI or the Dojo Toolkit's Dijit and DojoX interfaces.
Either solution would provide an excellent interface and provide the user with an experience that matched a local fat client. Using a web framework like Django and a PostgreSQL database underneath, would make for a solid backend.

I think there is a market for an excellent OSS product to capture the market and knock off this duopoly. However I suspect it will take some committed individuals to pull it off. From the grumblings you hear frequently from small business owners there is a ready market to ditch their over-priced software once a viable and supported solution arises.

Here are some interesting facts about the Australian Small Business Market:

There are about 1.2 million small businesses in Australia employing around 3.3 million people.
During the past decade, small businesses have created an estimated 660,000 new jobs.
42% of all goods exporters are small businesses.
25% of the Australian GDP (estimated in 2006 at $1 trillion dollars) comes from small business.

That's a lot of potential users of an OSS product!

I suspect a lot of OSS developers do a fair amount of moon-lighting and as such require a way to invoice for their work. (Consulting may be your day time job also to pay for the bills, and OSS coding your passion and after hours work!).

So what are your thoughts?
Is there enough interest in getting up an OSS Accounting+Payroll solution for Australian small businesses?