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Tomorrow is the TechNow09 event happening in Royal Oak, MI. ShopFiber is one of the companies presenting. We will be doing a short skit about what ShopFiber is and how it can help the average consumer shopping for electronics. I will be playing the role of “Bob,” an average consumer and Jake will be playing the role of “Neo,” a gadget lover. We are hoping that this will be a very entertaining way to showcase ShopFiber. There is a plan to broadcast the event on ustream and I will post a link once the setup is finalized. I will tweet the link as soon as I find out, so follow me on twitter if you would like to watch the live stream.

I am planning on being there for most of the time after the main event so come and say hi if you have a chance.

Let’s see if I can get this across with a super blurred photo. Below is a picture of my facebook “home” page. Notice how the same “block” (picture + three comments) is repeated several times, in total it was repeated four times. Knowing how challenging some queries with joins and grouping can be, I don’t blame facebook 🙂

The default Ubuntu repository is very busy and sometimes slow, especially around releases. So, one of the first things that I generally do after installing Ubuntu is change the repository to one that is generally more responsive. Synaptics has a nice features which it tests which repository might be best in your case, use that to figure out which one to use. In my case the MIT repository mostly seems to be very snappy. Below are the steps to changing the repository. Fortunately, it is all point-and-click.

1. Open Synaptic Package Manager (Ubuntu menu > System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager).
2. Go to Settings menu, then “Repositories”

3. Under the first tab “Ubuntu Software” open the “Download from:” drop down and select other.

4. Here you have two options, first let Synaptic figure out the best server by clicking “Select Best Server” or pick one that I know generally works pretty good in US, the MIT repository (Under “United States” choose ubuntu.media.mit.edu).

5. Click “Choose Server” and then close.
6. Now reload the repository and enjoy the faster download speeds 🙂

One of the changes that I am making now is to do more reading (or listening to audio books). This week’s goal is to read Josh Porter’s Designing for the Social Web. I have just started reading the book so I will report back once I am done.

Since we are talking about the “goal,” I have also started listening to The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt. I am only on disc two and the plan is to finish it by end of next week. I have to say that this audio book is very entertaining. Depending on how the rest is, I wouldn’t mind watching a movie version of this 🙂

I just published a post on the ShopFiber blog that might be of interest to my readers here, it’s called Case-insensitive username login in Django. Check it out.

I just saw in a promotion email that Lenovo has a laptop called SL 500. I thought it was an interesting choice of name because there was a also a Mercedes named that (at least till 2005). The SL 500 laptop is a 15.4” widescreen, ranging from Celeron to Core 2 Duo with 256MB dedicated video card. Does it deserve to be called SL 500? Probably not 🙂

As part of my rebranding I have redesigned my personal website. As you might have noticed a little while back, I changed my twitter name from “@thebitguru” to @farhanahmad. This redesign is the next step as I become Farhan Ahmad from thebitguru 🙂 Why? you ask. Well, it is a little weird when you go to events and people recognize thebitguru, but don’t know who “Farhan Ahmad” is. I will still keep the domain name, but my name will be more prominent from now on.

For now I went for a simple design, no fancy graphics. My goal is to make minor changes as I get more time. Also, I am now publishing my twitter updates on the site.

Hopefully you like what you see 🙂 Enjoy!

I have a Linux server running all the time so I prefer to turn off my main desktop when I am not using it. Instead what I do is SSH to the server and have it send a WOL packet to wake up the desktop. Previously I would turn off my desktop when I was done, but lately I have been hibernating it because this way I can get working quicker. Anyways, I noticed that when the computer is hibernating it wouldn’t wake up, but when I would shut it down then it would work perfectly. Weird. After some research I realized that Windows has its own setting for allowing a network card to wake up the computer, and this setting is disabled by default.

To allow a card to wake up the computer you have to enable this in the network card settings. To do this go to the device manager: Start Menu > Search for “Device Manager.” In Device Manager right click on your network card under “Network Adapters” and click properties. If your network card has power management features then you should see “Power Management” tab at the top of the properties window. Go to that tab and check “Allow this device to wake the computer.”

From now on you should be able to wake up your computer using the WOL feature even when it is hibernating.

Future of Web Apps – Miami 09 is almost here. Both Jake Lumetta and I are planning on attending. In addition to the conference, we decided to attend the Miami barcamp on Sunday February 22nd. So, let me know if you will be at either of these events. You can also follow me on twitter (@farhanahmad).

After the cold temperatures that we have lately had (<30, generally around 20s) in Madison (WI) I am really looking forward to the warmer Miami weather (65! :))

I have posted a new post on the ShopFiber blog about what to look for when choosing a web development framework and a few pluses for making django your choice. Check it out: http://blog.shopfiber.com/?p=90