Support for Firefox 3 will hopefully be in the next release of Complete UI. This is a screenshot of the grid shortly after I got it rendering properly in Firefox 3 RC3 on Linux. There are still changes with backwards compatibility with Firefox 2, however the adoption rate for Firefox appears to be a lot higher, and with the Guiness Book of Records PR Campagin that Mozilla is doing, there may be hope that things will get a lot faster.

Of course, Google has told me that I wasn’t running the right modules, while Ubuntu’s documentation told me that I needed apache2-mpm-worker. After apt-getting the stuff, and realizing that the two are mutually exclusive, I decided to give passenger a try.

The setup is way simpler, but there are definitely some downsides to it. It appears that mod_rails is about as fast as mongrel so far (although I am not using it on a live environment), but when things go wrong, going through the trace stack is definitely a lot more painful. Also, another thing that I noticed is that with every deploy change, that I have to restart Apache now, which disrupts the other apps on the server. This is probably more of the case of getting your own box, but of course if I had my own box to play with, I wouldn’t be using Apache.

Overall, if you are stuck sharing a box with some Drupal users, Passenger is your friend, since you won’t have to explain why their PHP is now using FastCGI. It’s clearly the path of least resistance as far as some Rails deployments go. This also means though that things like Capistrano will have to change to reflect this. I guess this is my assignment to lazyweb. Go find Cap scripts that deploy to Passenger. :P

Well, Evil Mad Scientist Labs has created this project called “The Great Internet Migratory Box of Electronics Junk”. This is where a box of electronic parts gets mailed from place to place and it gets picked through, parts get added and removed and the box moves on to its next destination. I put my name on the wiki to get a box, but if you want it, you really should check their wiki out and put your name down. I seem to be the first Canadian link, so I’m pretty pumped about that, even if I don’t get the box. :)

It’s definitely very cool, and I recommend you check it out!

I may hack something together with Merb at Hackday, but I haven’t decided yet. I could just as easily play with Arduino again or try out Django or play with another Python app.

However, here’s the list of events that are interesting to me:

• May 24th - Nitobi Hackday the Third - At Nitobi HQ!
• May 26th - VanLUG presentation - From Embedded to Web, the Tech behind FreeTheNet
• May 29th to June 1st - Something in Portland (TBD!)
• June 2nd - van.rb presentation - From Embedded to Web, the Tech behind FreeTheNet

Also, it should be noted that I’m going to test a sync script on this blog shortly.

The thing that I find with this speculation is that we don’t know what happened to Twitter. I haven’t spoken to Blaine personally in years, but I’m glad to see that other people are calling Michael Arrington out on this article, and that this is better left to Valleywag and other blogs that I don’t bother reading, which TechCrunch has joined the ranks of. Since this happened a couple of weeks ago, I’m suprised that none of our mutual friends up here has heard that he had left Twitter. However, I wish him the best, and he is definitely one of the smartest people that I have probably ever talked to about tech in this town. It makes me sad at the state of the industry, even when it’s gossip, to see this sort of story pass as a critique.

My presentation seemed to have gone fairly well. We introduced DogOnRails and talked about OpenMesh, Meraki and FON. I think that my criticism of the lack of openness on their part is valid. However, I’m hoping that people understand that the reason we don’t use Open-Mesh’s dashboard is more to do with our users data and less to do with the people involved. If Open-Mesh.com was in Canada, we would consider using it, but since it’s in the US, and we’re dealing with people’s data, we don’t. I have no problems with Open-Mesh.com as a company per se, I have problems with data about which users are in what area of town being stored in the United States and being subject to the PATRIOT act, and other intrusive laws. The data is really the key behind our decision to keep FreeTheNet’s auth servers in Canada under our control, since while MAC addresses and geographical locations may seem pretty mundane to most people, it’s scary enough that we take privacy seriously. We’ll still buy hardware from Open-Mesh.com, but we’ll use our own version of the firmware, since we all agree on Open Hardware and Open Standards.

My presentation should be uploaded sometime in the next couple of weeks, and people can check back to the OpenWebVancouver site to check it out.

I’ll have info up soon for how to buy a Co-Op membership, and what the pricing scales are like for Personal, Not-For-Proft & Co-Ops and Businesses. I’m seriously thinking that we can beat the naysayers and further establish ourselves as truly doing something different. We have to iron out some bugs in DogOnRails and style the app, but we’re going to be ready to rock on Monday.

You can check the schedule here.

Also, the Vancouver Open Network Initiatives Cooperative has sent its paperwork into Victoria for incorporation. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens next.

In other news, the Vancouver Open Network Initiatives Cooperative, the people who brought you FreeTheNet, are coming out with SuperMesh!!!! I’ll be giving more info on that as it develops.

Update: I’m no longer the first person in Room 2. You should STILL go to OpenWebVan and check it out!