My garden isn’t growing as well as I would like and I realized it is because the garden doesn’t get much sun. I decided that the bush in front of the garden needed to go. Here is the time line of it going away.
Next on the list of things to do, is wait for my lemon cucumber plant to finish doing its thing (another few weeks) and then I’m going to pull it out and have the stumps ground down.
I have to give it to OwnCloud for making the installation really easy! In less than two minutes I had OwnCloud installed and ready to go.The GUI has a nice sleek feel to it. It doesn’t have as much functionality as I thought it would, but none the less I took it from sandbox to live the same night. Linking my Desktop and Phone to the install was incredibly easy.
Now to the things that bug me enough to make me tell you about it.
All in all, I am happy with it. It’s a nice alternative to Dropbox or Google Drive. However, if you don’t have an ISP with a decent Upload speed you will suffer a lot.
I will get some screenshots added later tonight.
You’re familiar with the term cloud right?… If not, I’m sure you have heard of Dropbox, Box, Google Drive… etc. These are all Cloud services, they store your data on a server that is accessible from anywhere. So, what I’m going to do, is create my own using OwnCloud and an Ubuntu Server I have (currently it sits and runs PyTivo.. That’s a different blog post 🙂 ) (Edit: Yes I am aware of Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud Server.. I will look at installing and playing with this.)
I was watching TWiT‘s new show “Know How…” and their first episode was about rolling out your own cloud a few different ways, they shows the Tonido Plug and the Pogo Plug. Now Tonido has a software suite you can download and use but from the sounds of it, you are actually allow them to see some of your data (at least that is how it is with the Tonido plug device). I’m not so interested in allowing that to happen, not because I’m doing anything illegal but because I don’t like the idea of people willy nilly looking at my data.
Now, looking at OwnCloud you can run the software on your machine (Desktop or Server, I prefer server) and it will simply host a Web GUI that you can access your data from. OwnCloud comes with a client you install on your device and you can access your data from your server. I don’t know if there is a mobile app yet. I mainly want this setup so I can easily access content from my home server without needing to worry about a super low max limit (Dropbox currently has 4gb on my account and Box has 50gb).
I plan on toying with it and seeing what all it does and then writing a review on it. The idea of running your own cloud (If you have an ISP that gives you a nice upload speed and doesn’t limit you) is a really neat idea. You don’t have to worry about uploading to a server, where God knows who is looking at your data.
The other option is to use software to encrypt your data before you upload to these cloud services, the reason I dislike that idea is that when I want to run in and grab something quick I don’t want to have to worry about, “Does this computer/device have the software to allow me to view this?”
So, I will install and toy with OwnCloud on my Sandbox machine and see what I come up with. If you do not have a sandbox machine. You should REALLY invest in one. Mine is basically an old computer I had laying around after an upgrade that I tossed some hardware into. You can also pick up computers pretty cheap on ebay or a local computer recycler. Free Geek is a good place to look too.
See you on the other side!
-Dan
July 16, 1995 – The Columbian
Take yourself back to that soft summer night when you last saw the rocket’s red glare.
It was the 33rd annual fireworks show that capped the holiday over the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
There were 45,000 or so of you on the National Park Service grounds. Another 25,000 to 50,000 watched from vantage points around the city and south on the Oregon shore. The Columbia River was dotted with firefly lights of watercraft large, small and gigantic.
A television audience delivered for the first time through KGW-TV added 600,000 viewers.
This was Vancouver the place to be on the Fourth of July. It was the place known for having, whether by myth or magic, the largest fireworks show west of the Mississippi River.
And it was spectacular: Bursts of stars and red and white lights floating to the river under tiny parachutes. Flashes of orange light and the thumps of sound from shore to shore marked the launch of fireworks shells into the night. The brilliant bursts of light and sound drew oohs and ahhs of appreciation from young and old. It was exciting to watch and wonder what next would ride its light trail into the sky and burst into beauty.
This was Vancouver, and its fireworks show a mark of recognition and identity.
Summer festivals may come and go, but Vancouver’s annual fireworks display already extends past a third of a century.
When the sound had ebbed and the smoke cleared from the last shot, thousands headed home to Vancouver, Battle Ground, Camas, Washougal, LaCenter, Ridgefield, Amboy, Yacolt, Woodland and Portland.
A northbound traveler on the I-5 freeway after midnight told of a steady stream of cars returning south from Vancouver across the Interstate bridge to homes in Portland and beyond. It was like rush-hour traffic.
This was Vancouver, and on this night it achieved a magical quality.
If it is magic, then there has to be a magician. It is, and there is. He is Jim Larson, who organizes and orchestrates the show with the help of a few hundred of his friends all volunteers.
This show has been staged year after year.
People who don’t know think this is Vancouver’s show. They have come to demand this free event as an entitlement.
That’s the rub. It isn’t Vancouver’s show, but it should be. Vancouver’s leaders natural and political should understand that this event, more than any other, focuses regional attention on the city. But volunteers struggle year after year to make ends meet to raise $250,000 for that entertainment and safe fireworks. And they raise thousands of dollars for good charitable causes through sales from food and other booths at the site.
Financing is touch and go. Volunteers fret and sweat over the money. Will it be enough? Will fireworks sales cover the expenses?
Larson has waved his magic wand year after year. He’s scrimped and pleaded, borrowed and bartered to make sure it happens.
But this year, scrunching his bear-size frame into a battered chair at a staging area near the airport, he reflects weariness and irritation.
He thinks Vancouver, which reaps the rewards, ought to do more for this show.
“The city has not even paid its fair share,” he said.
Vancouver kicked in a paltry $10,000 this year, plus police and other in-kind services estimated at $12,000. Even so, city representatives pressured Larson to hire more outside security people for crowd control.
The city gave the Vancouver Festival $25,000 for its one and only event last summer. That fete, which flopped in most every possible measure, also received in-kind help from the city. The debts the effort left behind gave Larson some headaches. “We use the same sound, stage and lighting outfits as they did, and these guys worry about getting paid,” he said. “We’ve always paid our bills.”
There are other costs, too, such incidentals as trash cleanup and portable toilets.
The Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce isn’t at the top of Larson’s Christmas list either.
“The only help they gave us was to put a recording on their phone system talking about the event,” Larson said. “Big deal.”
Every year he worries the event will die. “If the state limits us to safe-and-sane fireworks (those that do not leave the ground), we might as well pack it in. If the Native Americans establish a casino near Washougal and are able to sell their more high-powered fireworks, you can forget about sales here.”
There’s another uncertainty next year as well. Larson will be working with four new major players: mayor and city manager of Vancouver, commander of the Vancouver Barracks and superintendent of the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
And if the Fourth of July show should lapse for one year, Larson doubts it could ever be pulled back together.
Will he try to do it next year? “Yeah. Probably,” he says with a shrug. “I don’t want to see it end.”
“I’m not negative on fireworks, but I don’t like the problems they bring in the hands of unsupervised young people and I wish we didn’t have to depend so heavily on those sales.”
It’s pride that keeps Larson going, and such things as the television image of a 79-year-old bed-ridden woman who was helped to the site because she loves the show.
It’s knowing he and his volunteer army brought excitement, patriotism and identity to Vancouver.
Next year, though, he’d like a lot more help from his friends. The City of Vancouver ought to be first in line.
Tom Koenninger is vice president/editor of The Columbian.
Dan Walker 