I've been a fan of using FreeNX to remotely connect to my Linux desktops (both real and virtual). It works much more like you're "natively" using the machine than VNC, making it much more like Windows Remote Desktop, but without the hassle of manual X Forwarding. Plus, it lets you better handle varying desktop sizes without having to change the native resolution of the remote desktop.

Unfortunately, the recommendation from the FreeNX project is to use the free client from NoMachine (the commercial NX terminal server equivalent of FreeNX) as the Windows client. That's unfortunate because of a disconnect in something that means that the 2.0 version of the Windows client doesn't work with the packages of FreeNX for Ubuntu/Debian Linux.

That meant that I've been either having to install the commercial NX server (which has connection limits I'm not thrilled about) or dig around for an older version of the Windows client (which wasn't as easy as I had thought) in order to use this setup. It's definitely worth it over using VNC, but still irritating.

Then, today I was setting up a new virtual machine and, after installing FreeNX on the server, went to install an NX client on a Windows machine, but didn't have my archived copy of the older 1.5 version handy, so I went back to the NoMachine site to see if I could find it again.

That's when I noticed that there was a 3.0 version available, so I gave that a shot. Glory be, it works with FreeNX with no problems.

I don't know exactly what changed in either piece to make it work and this time I don't really care. All I know is that I can now run the newest client and the free server and all is right with the world.

Photo: Kevin Walsh

A few weeks back, Geeks.com sent me one of their patented Emails of Temptation. Inside those emails are a whole series of refurbished and otherwise deeply discounted geeky gadgets and toys. They're tempting, because often the stuff the offer is the first time I've seen a given bit of technology priced below my threshold.

Such was the case with the tablet PC's they had in that particular email. 1.5Ghz/512MB/40GB Toshiba tablet PC's for $499. Now, I've wanted a tablet for quite a while. However, they've pretty much all been in that $1500-$2000 range. Since most of the ones that I'd consider a decent general purpose laptop are on the top end of that range, I've been reluctant to buy one. However, at $500, a tablet can be a secondary machine, useful specifically for what a tablet is good for.

That's exactly what I've been doing with this thing since I got it. I keep it in the "tablet" form rather than the laptop form all the time. If there's any temptation to flip it over to the laptop form, I've been taking that as a sign that I should get to a regular laptop or desktop machine instead.

That's been a reasonable course of action as far as I can see so far. Everyone seems to have a tendency (myself included) to centralize our computing. We find a device that meets 60% of our computing needs and we spend a great deal of time trying to make everything else work there as well.

The tablet is really good for:

• Taking notes. OneNote is pretty good software. The same is true of most of the apps that were built for the "Ink" technology. I can write questions on top of requirements documents, make adjustments to wireframe screenshots, and otherwise write on the top of documents. And, after writing a question on a document, if I get a satisfactory answer, I can erase the note. This turns these documents into truly working documents.
• Drawing diagrams. I do a lot of whiteboard diagrams to explain technology and potential solutions in my consulting practice. This thing is now a portable whiteboard with the ability to save and share the results. No more erasing one board to get room to keep going.
• Reading documents, ebooks and feed items. The portrait orientation and pen interaction for flipping through longer documents just feels right. I need to buy/install tools for annotating PDF like I can Word docs, etc. and I'll get the really nice ability to notate in the margins on those as well. And, Google Reader is much better on the tablet than any device I've used it on previously.
• Graphics editing. I don't do as much of this as I used to, but it's an obvious use for one of these. Being able to draw and sketch right on the monitor surface closes that huge gap that's been there in all other forms of drawing on a computer and makes the interaction much more normal.
• While I haven't yet used it for this purpose, I'm betting that doing screencasts with a tablet will work better than other methods.
• Similarly, hooking the tablet up to a projector would give you that sports-style ability to easily point out what you mean and turn any flat white surface into a whiteboard without having to mess with the markers.

What this thing *isn't* good for:

Today is Father's Day (at least as I'm writing this). Since Shelly and I have no human children, just the dogs, we don't get to officially participate as the targets of Mother's Day and Father's Day. Of course, that doesn't stop us from using it as an excuse to buy each other a bunch of DVD's on behalf of Rowdy and Bailey.

This year feels a little different though, because yesterday as I was coming home from a Target run, my phone rang with an area code I didn't recognize. When I answered, the person on the other end of the line was Laurin, the German student who's coming to stay with us for the '07-'08 school year.

We've emailed back and forth a couple of times, but actually hearing his voice makes this whole thing very real. He's got a flight scheduled, has had briefings with other students coming here, has been checking out the school's website, etc. On our side, we've cleaned out the garage an have gotten most of the junk out of the guest bedroom to get it ready for it to be *his* room for the year.

As he's arriving on August 22, at which point, we're going to be thrust into being temporary father and mother to a 16 year old for a year. That's been more abstract than it became yesterday. I'm still confident that things are going to go well, but it's still a shift in reality. Both Shelly and I chatted with him for a few minutes and came away with a much more "real" picture of him as a person, not just a profile, introduction letter and some emails.

It's going to be an interesting ride.

Photo: Charro Badger

About a year ago, I mentioned the band that a friend of mine from junior high and high school is fronting. At the time of that writing, they had an EP out that was a diamond in the rough. It was enjoyable and I looked forward to them refining their craft and seeing where things would go.

Well, I just listened through the new one that came in the mail today and I have to say that Mat and crew have taken that rough chunk of coal, cut and polished it and the resulting EP: Brand New Faith is a much more mature release in nearly every way a collection of music can be.

The song structures are more complex and Mat, while still doing some of that cruising-along-monotone that appropriately drives the song "This Truck Makes More $$$ After Midnight", he is also exploring much more of his tonal and dynamic range on "Bound for Glory".

The EP and the music overall are in that Americana/Roots Rock/Alt Country/Grit/Honky Tonk/Blues Rock/Whatever genre that has been growing over the last few years. The themes tap into some of that same mythology and themes that something like HBO's Carnivale explores. Many of the bits are familiar, including the vocabulary of faith, but with that gritty twist that makes it interesting.

Here's the band's own description of the album:

Voodoo curses, Doomsday Preachers and Truck Stop Transsexuals cross paths. A killer travels down highway 61 only to put his faith in a statue of Jesus while searching for the next 'good time.' A pin-up queen gives her soul to God and breaks the devil’s heart. An outlaw trucker rolls down the back roads of lost love and sin, pulled between the powers of heaven and hell. When you find the Ghosts of Redemption and the long lost lover known as Damnation rolled up like a cowboy's cigarette on the wrong side of the tracks…you’ve found a Brand New Faith.

Overall, it reminds me of bits of Ray Wylie Hubbard and The Legendary Shack Shakers, but unique in its own way. That's a good thing.

If you want to give it a preview, you can hear all of the songs on the band's page. And, if you like what you hear or just want to support independent music from the Midwest, you can pick up the album from CDBaby.

Photo: raemin Zhang

I'm reading a lot over the last couple of weeks about the memoir as a form of writing. While I'm not planning on writing one myself, there is a reason behind this newfound interest: my project Rememoir. That's the thing I mentioned a few days ago as a project I'm excited about. I'm doing a lot of reading about them because the project is centered around helping people write and publish their memoirs.

I think it will be interesting technologically, but will be even more interesting from a "story" perspective. Creating a place for people to specifically share their personal story intrigues me. I really like the idea of helping people through that process. I think it's that whole combination that has me excited about the project.

One of the things I've been reading to have a better understanding of memoirs and what makes them tick is "Inventing the Truth", edited by William Zinsser. I've only just started it, but the intro essay is triggering lots of colliding thoughts.

2 topics are mentioned in that intro essay are things that have been recurring themes in my life. One of those is the nature of truth, especially how it relates to memory. Zinsser talks about the respective reactions he and his mother had to his writing about his childhood. He wrote it and remembered it as being a lonely childhood, which surprised and saddened his mother, who remembered his childhood as being positive and happy.

He wonders about which vision of his past is infused with more truth. Did his mother just not notice his loneliness or has his memory blown it out of proportion? In my own life, I've become aware of this exact thing. Memories that I remember painfully because of the activity involved are cherished by my dad because they were with me.

Even thinking about some of those now grabs at my heart. I tears me up that my memory and sharing it could actually disturb some of his favorite memories. At the same time, there are some of my most treasured memories that I've found are either completely unknown to my parents or that I've clearly remembered them in a much better light than they actually happened.

I'm intrigued by this whole mess and how the importance of those memories to us affects and determines just how true they are. One of the passages from "The Things They Carried" is that the some of the truest stories never happened and there's some stuff that happened that's not true.

A true story that never happened is a grenade landing on the ground and a guy jumps on it and dies saving his buddies. That's a true story. What really happened is that the guy jumped on the grenade and they all died anyway.

What that says about truth is complicated and hard to articulate, but resonant nonetheless.

The other topic that jumped out at me was Zinsser's description of humor as the "universal solvent". That is a great turn of phrase to describe how I feel about humor. It does act as a solvent, dissolving tensions, fear, unease, etc. That kind of humor has been a constant part of my life as a method of dealing with pain and frustration, showing up in some fairly dark humor. People close to me can attest that the bigger the tragedy or pain, the more likely I am to use humor to deal with it.

I'm not alone. That's pretty much the culture of my family and probably one of the reasons I like dark humor as a tension release in really tense moments in movies. It just works.

All of this has me in a reflective state. I'm not planning on writing a memoir, but thinking about helping other people do just that, you can't help but think about the important moments in your own life and how you'd characterize them. How many of my memories are true, how many actually happened, how many of the painful moments were punctuated with humor and how many remain stark and without the dissolving power of a good laugh.