Bringing Light Into The Darkness

The Title of this blog?

It has nothing to do with us. Rather, it has everything to do with a group of people who care enough to wade through the human filth of child abuse and rescue those needing them long ago.

The Settlement Home is founded by 450 caring Austin and Central Texas women. They have built a place of safety and healing for girls that have seen the ugliest side of human nature...the side that cares only for satisfying a dark and uncaring id.

Don't ask me to be any more specific, rage is not far from me as I write this.

Mike Downing, the RTC Director called me last Wednesday. He wanted to know if his non-profit qualified for our assistance. Mike was about 1/3 of the way through his pitch when I stopped him.

"When can I come out and look the place over? We'll be glad to help you."

As Mike spoke, I Googled The Settlement Home. Something deep in the muck of memory was struggling to get oxygen...it struck me soon enough. And no, we won't go into the revelation...suffice it to say that there are some real-life hero's working within this system and I know who they are.

Not that it matters...it simply speaks to me the character of this place. These people wouldn't be there if it wasn't a place of healing.

I arrived at the Settlement Home at 10 am that next Saturday. I was met by Heather Siegfried, Youth Care Coordinator, and Brooke Fell, Support Services Coordinator. They walked me to the Administration building to meet the guy that was going to be our partner in this project.

His name is Ben Garcia and he is the Network Administrator for The Settlement Home. Ben fit my stereotype of a Professional Geek immediately. He was quiet, and when he spoke it was with precise focus on what he wanted to communicate without any fluff. His gaze was as intense as his knowledge of what he does.

I had dreaded this meeting for the entire span of time between Mike's phone call and the present moment.

The moment I had to tell this Network Administrator that I was going to use Linux exclusively for the project. I was ready for the argument when it came time to bring it forward.

Heather, Brooke and Ben walked me into the first dorm so I could see the physical layout of the work areas. All the dorms are basically the same so I could make sketches from this one and pretty much have an idea of the other three buildings. Some of the girls peeked in cautiously as we spoke.





There would be a total of 12 computers needed. Each room in each dorm had 3 girls residing within. We would supply 1 computer for every three-girl dorm room. As I made notes of the layout, I nonchalantly cleared my throat and addressed Ben.

"We're going to be installing Linux on these machines Ben, is that going to cause you any problems?"

I finished my sketch in the next two seconds and looked up to see his physical response.

"No, that's all I run here."

I was just about overwhelmed with relief and I raised my hand in a high-five invitation and couldn't help but show my delight.

"Dude!"

We completed the male ritual with unpracticed awkwardness. It was about 5 minutes into the rapid-fire back and forth about distros, servers, Kernels and networking stuff that I noticed the female portion of our group had left.

I can't blame them...male bonding can be a bit embarrassing. Especially Geek male bonding.

Ben took me immediately into the server room. He has been at The Settlement Home since 1999 and is one of the shortest term employee's at the home. The Executive Director, Linda Kokemor, just celebrated her 28th year there. The Settlement Home doesn't have any employee turnover. The people that work there are dedicated and loving people who love what they do...and they love each and every girl there as if they were their own.





Some of them do not make that an easy task. There are some extremely troubled girls within this Place of Hope.

Because of the sensitive nature of the clientèle and staff, the network there is hardened to steel-cased proportions. I watched and listened in awe as Ben showed me his work...work that had taken a decade to do. He built this elaborate and effective network from the ground up and it is a model of professionalism and pride. I spent the better part of three hours with Ben, walking the grounds, meeting the staff and the girls that live there...

The girls that are healing from some of the most atrocious wounds anyone can imagine.

Wounds of the Spirit.

So the HeliOS Project is going into The Settlement Home and we are going to provide these girls with the best we can give them. Mike, you and your staff honor us by allowing us to complete this task. We will spare nothing to make sure they have everything they need...no skimping, no short cuts. This will certainly tax our already critical need for wireless adapters but we will proceed as if all our needs will be met.

We are going to match the thing that The Settlement home gives them most.

We are going to give them Love.

All-Righty Then












many thanks to metallixfaker for the use of his fantastic art...Tattered Teddy Bear

Wireless Woes Continue to Woo Project

We've had some great success in getting computers donated for our HeliOS Project. Problem is, because we cannot get our kids the internet connections they need, we are now almost 100 percent dependent upon wireless connections.

We cannot get wireless devices donated.

Everything else is coming in well and people have been generous to a fault...they just don't have or won't part with wirless devices. We're kind of in a jam and we will come here to see if we can't get this at least temporarily fixed.

Pasted directly from the Current Needs page of our website:

Here are three kinds we can use. The PCMCIA Adapters, the USB Wireless adapters and the PCI wireless adapters. We need all of them in equal measure so any one of them would be greatly appreciated. You can order from the corresponding links and have them shipped to us, you can donate to our fund on the blog of helios website as we can buy them in bulk (on the left side of the page) If you work at a company or firm that has some not being used, we can use those as well. We have a drop point in North Austin if that is more convenient for you. You can also drop them off at our facility on Giblin Bend Road or we will pick them up as our resources allow.

If we were not so behind in getting these machines out, we wouldn't come here for this...we like to keep the HeliOS Project business on that side of the page, but in this circumstance, we hope that folks can give us a hand getting these devices here and into machines. If you care to purchase them and send them to us as an option, email icanhelp@fixedbylinux.com and we will get you our shipping address. That may be a bit more time than some people have so in that event, you can add to our bulk order fund at the top left of this page.

Thank you for being part of what we do.

All-Righty Then

A letter to a Texas Senator

I couldn't keep my mouth shut. So what's new about that?

When there are obvious things missing in an argument, it's ridiculous to let both parties continue without making them aware of this absence.

So it was with Texas Senator Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa of McAllen Texas. He stood on the Senate floor and decried the use of Vista, pushing instead for the upgrade to Windows 7. Do they not know they have a choice in this?






They do now.

helios juan.hinojosa@senate.state.tx.us

Dear Senator,

I read with interest your opposition to upgrading to Vista and instead favor an upgrade to Windows 7.

My name is Ken Starks and I am one of the most active Free Software advocates in the United States. Senator, the state of Texas is paying tens of millions of dollars a year to Microsoft when they have a free, virus-free and stable alternative at their fingertips, literally. Sir, let me pose a question. Why does the state of Texas insist on purchasing a product that proves to be more expensive to maintain than it does to purchase? Anti-virus software, defrag and registry fixers, malware protection...why? Why are we paying for software that demands we purchase other software in order for it to work? That is a question that I would honestly like answered.

I will tip my hat to the obvious influence of the powerful Microsoft Lobby. They have been there and gone, and their impact on State software purchases is obvious. I am curious to know if the dollar amounts we taxpayers spend on Microsoft software is available for public consumption. Again, Microsoft has lobbied you successfully. Entire nations, states and municipalities across the globe have switched to GNU/Linux and Free Software, yet the US remains the last bastion of Microsoft strength.

And Senator, the excuse that Linux is too hard to learn is incorrect. I hold Linux Learning Center meetings on a weekly basis with 10 and 12 year old kids. They are picking it up in 30 minutes or less. Should any of our House or Senate Members have problems with it, I am sure their parents would not mind dropping them off at the Capitol and giving them a hand.

Sincerely
Ken Starks

I dunno...will it matter? Who knows. The Senator's email address is there for all to see. Maybe I don't need to be the only one letting the Senator know that he has choices.

All-Righty Then

Windows Guy Cuffs Microsoft

There's nothing I can add to this. Is it a stunning, world changing announcement or just another "we told you so" moment.

I expect many more of these in the future.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2342703,00.asp

Nuff Said

A Linux Migration in Process

Stu Weineke knows the advantages of using Gnu/Linux in the Enterprise...he is right in the middle of it. However Stu is in a unique position. He's not their "IT Guy". Stu is the Facilities Engineer.

This author would be led to believe that, given the data I have been given, Stu is light years ahead of their "IT Guys".

Stu fixes things where he works. Now he's fixing their computers.

It all started when someone from the rarefied air of management asked Stu if he could make them a map of their campus. They had no idea of what to expect. Take equal parts of OCD, Knowledge of free software and the pure love of creating something and this is what you get.

It's an svg file so firefox is going to render it huge...might wanna consider loading inkscape for this one. Conversely, this article appeared in LXer just yesterday. How synchronicity-ous is that?
Just right click, save file as, and go from there.

And I can make up words...I'm a blogger with no claim on being very smart.

My email inbox was fairly inundated with requests to see Stu's work a bit closer so after taking some of the more sensitive data out of it, he shipped us the original svg file that started the whole thing.

The whole thing?

Stu says that the "tech guys" that laughed at him earlier have been replaced with more knowledgeable folks that actually have a clue. The previous guys, when asked to provide an application that could render svg's, told him to use MS paint.

Stu says he can have this organization migrated to Linux in 3 years.

It's a big organization...and I believe him. They were impressed with this fantastic piece of work...that they didn't have to put out one dime in software costs to get it done....some substantial software costs none the less. What they should have been impressed with is the "computer" he did it on.

A Micron Trek2, PII 300 with 192Mb ram, 20G hard drive, loaded
with Debian Etch.

Any tech department uses these particular laptops abundantly today...as doorstops. Stu was able to create this campus map fully on this machine....with GNU/Linux and free software.

A computer that should have been retired to a museum long ago.

We're going to watch the progress, setbacks and hopefully the ultimate migration of this company to GNU/Linux and Free Software.

Stay Tooned.

All-Righty Then

The new faces of Linux - Who Do I Yell At?

Rick Singerman doesn't much care about how his computer works. He simply wants it to work every time he turns it on. We've discussed this here as it has been discussed over and over in the Linux Community.

A computer is NOT an appliance. It is a maintainable machine that needs attention from time to time. Even Microsoft, with their tens of thousands of viruses and countless malware threats cannot get The Human Nature to understand:

A computer is NOT an appliance. It is a maintainable machine that needs attention from time to time.

Do we have that phrase obnoxiously burned into memory yet?

So Rick Singerman, being what he would refer to as a "typical home user", lived the typical Windows Experience. He resigned himself to doing steady backups and wiping his computer clean every six months to restore the speed and snappiness experienced by a new install. He got the maintenance religion after having to do these installs every 6 months. Since he downloaded programs constantly and installed/uninstalled applications daily, his system was subject to becoming unstable much sooner than the normal Windows install. Rick provides us with advice given to him by the local shop that did his computer repair for him:

"...Make sure you defrag the hard drive monthly, scan for viruses/spyware on a tri-weekly basis (if not more), run a registry cleaner at the very least monthly and do a disk cleanup at least once a week. We recommend you stay away from the free virus tools and use the ones that we recommend on our website. (I would guess a reseller fee here - h) Also be aware that there are programs we recommend that can automate many of these tasks for you and you can find them on our website as well. If you do not have the time we will be happy to set up a maintenance plan on a quarterly basis to do this for you."

I bet you would.

Rick came to us on the recommendation of someone we did a HeliOS Project install for. Visiting the home for his church outreach program, Rick noted the kids playing on the computer and mentioned how clear and attractive the presentation was. It was then he learned that there was an alternative way to run a computer.

When I came out to see him, he showed me the email from his repair shop, the one that sent him the email partially quoted above. I asked him to mentally add up the accumulated time all of this would take. When he did, he was visably surprised.

"Who has time to do all of that? It doesn't account for the hours I do spend when I have to reinstall."

Indeed, your world does from time to time sucketh.

Once we demonstrated a GNU/Linux live cd for him and showed him how he could run his "necessary" programs via Wine and VirtualBox, he was sold...and I mean on the spot. We used two 8 gig thumb drives to copy his music, pictures and documents then did a partition session and replaced his Windows Vista sytem with Mint Linux.

After 29 minutes, I announced that his install was done and that we would now boot into his new Linux Operating System.

His jaw dropped.

"That's it, we're done? How about the actual install? How long will it take to get all the drivers and codecs loaded?"

I just smiled and told him that the install was done, complete with all but a few codecs he might want such as flash. I told him that would take a grand total of about 5 minutes, maybe less. He was skeptical to say the least.

It only took about 20 minutes inside the system to remove any skepticism he had. I watched him as he "drove" his new system. He didn't say much, just made sounds of affirmation to himself as he explored and found things to his liking. I showed him how to use k3b, streamtuner, his file system and most importantly to him, his office suite. Rich writes technical bullitens for his company and spends vast amounts of time in either a rich text editor or a word processor. When those thing met his approval, our business was finished.

Rick saw our TV presentation before the Austin City Council Technology Commission and called to say that he had some computer equipment that I might want for The HeliOS Project. When I returned to his home to pick it up, he also had another surprise for me.

Sitting in his newly re-arranged den were 9 kids, ages ranging from 8 to 11. They were gathered around 5 different computers set up on a long banquet table against the far end of the room. Each one was arranged in neat work areas and the children were busy swapping "hey look-it here's" and "oh yeah, beat this score's" Rick fairly beamed as he watched me watch the kids.

"After we talked the last time, I decided that I could do what you do on a smaller scale. I got with the folks at my Church and some of them donated these machines to me. They come twice a week and just play games and learn how to use the system. What do you think?"

Well, all I could think of is how good a thing this was. It goes to show that anyone with a bit of caring and energy can do this just about anywhere. I spent the next three hours with Rick and different kids that wandered in and out. The doorbell rang often during that three hours. Many of the kids had parents in tow...which is good. Parents need to see where there kids are and who they are with. At peak, we had 17 kids total in this little den.

I spoke with Rick this morning and asked him how it was going and that I was going to mention his "project". He just laughed.

"I haven't done anything that most anyone would have done once they know the tools are available to him. I do have a question though. Who do I yell at?"

My silence was enough to let him know I had no clue what he was talking bout.

"Who do I go to to complain about all the time I've wasted with "that other system". Don't we have any legal recourse here? Ken, the hours we've collectively wasted maintaining something that should have never needed it..."

I explained to him about the EULA and advised him to read it...things would become clear as a bell then. I told him to just take his blood pressure medication prior to doing it. When I briefly outlined the way Microsoft and other proprietary software vendors had protected themselves he just shook his head.

Rick told me that I was not to make a big deal out of his efforts...that anyone with any compassion and a bit of spare time would do the same thing he did...it really wasn't a big deal.

I spoke with him a few minutes longer and then hung up the phone. I still searched for a kind way to tell him just how wrong his "anybody would do this" assessment was, but then again...why throw cold water on rolling success? Let a good person do what comes natural.

All-Righty Then

Enterprise clueless, employees not so much.

In preparation for our "The New Faces of Linux" article, we thought it would be good to prime the pump with a story submitted by Stu Wieneke of Phoenix.

You know...the place that mothered the phrase "but it's a dry heat."

Right, people are bursting into flame on the street.



At least it's a dry flame.

Knowing Phoenix well, I was more than happy to hear about this incident and thought I'd share it with you. Also, we encourage you to submit stories like this so we can put them forth here. Eventually, phrases like "but it's a dry heat" and "GNU/Linux isn't ready for the Enterprise" will go the way of, well...

"but it's all command line, I need clicky things..."
"My apps won't run on Linux...."
"It's only secure because no one uses it..."
"It's so hard to learn..."

Thanks Stu for this report.

I work in the Facilities Maintenance Dept. of a trade school here in Phoenix, AZ. Whenever the water leaks, a breaker trips, or someone hurls in the bathroom sink, I'm the guy
they call.

In short, I am not a computer professional at all beyond my
interest in it as a hobby, which makes me the department "Tech" guy. I
started playing with Linux late in 2001, and by early 2003 I was running
nothing else on any of my home computers.


About 6 months ago, my boss decided he wanted a map. A big one that
showed the entire campus with all 7 buildings, detailing the locations
of all the fire exits, water mains, breaker boxes, utility cutoffs,
along with any other information the emergency services in the area
might be interested in finding out real quick. He asked me if I could
make such a map, and I said "Sure!". Not only did I tell him I could
make such a map, but I could make it in such a way that different layers
could contain just about any information we wanted, and within a few
minutes we would be able to use it to create a "custom" map for just
about any purpose we desired!

I went to the IT department, and told them I needed a decent SVG
graphics application, like Adobe or (ugh!) Visio. The last time I heard
them laugh that hard was when I asked them for a Dvorak keymap on my
work computer, but I digress. They told me to use "MS Paint". Yes, the
same version of Paint that came bundled with Windows 3.1, and allows you
to rotate a circle or a square in 90 Degree increments only.

I knew I was going to need a lot more than that, but loading even FOSS software
on the company computers is strictly forbidden! I took one of my old
laptops (a Micron Trek2, PII 300 with 192Mb ram, 20G hard drive), loaded
with Debian Etch, and kept it in my desk drawer for whenever I had some
time to work on the map. I used Inkscape, because It's easy to use, yet
powerful enough to do everything I needed it to do.

As my work on the map progressed, I converted the .svg drawings to .png, (Windows doesn't
natively support .svg, not on our network, anyway) and printed them out
for everyone else to edit and add information to, which I then used in
the next version. It took about 6 months, but I finally finished it,
then converted the final version to a .pdf which I took to Kinko's for
printing.

I just picked it up last Monday, and I told the girl at Kinko's that my
boss was going to be tickled pink when he saw it. She said she thought
it looked really good for something produced "in house", and seemed
quite surprised when I told her I made it on a Linux computer running
nothing but Open Source software.

"Just imagine,", I asked her, "How much would Kinko's be worth today if
they didn't have to pay Microsoft for Windows software?"

"A LOT!", she admitted, but then said, "Unfortunately, Linux isn't
compatible with anything we use here..."

Her voice trailed off as I simply smiled and pointed at the map she was
boxing up for me.

"Well, I guess it *is* getting better...", she admitted.

"...And tomorrow it will be even better than it is today!", I replied.
In the meantime, my boss was so pleased with the results that he sent
pictures of the map to all the other campus directors, and I expect that
I will soon be explaining to all of them how I made it. I will start by
telling them I used something called "Linux"...


Thanks.
Stu Wieneke













All-Righty Then...