Ubuntu for Robots

Recently I started a new project called Ubuntu for Robots. It's a blog about how to make Ubuntu more user friendly and fun. If you are interested, go to ubuntuforrobots.blogspot.com.

At work I'm busy writing a program for the IP phones that lets you use the phones like an intercom system. It's a little bit frustrating because the documentation that comes with the phones is not well written, and the different models of phones seem to behave in different ways. It is nice to be doing some programming for a change instead of just working on IT stuff all the time.

I also wrote a program in Java that finds the fastest server in a list of mirrors. Ubuntu publishes a list of servers where you can download updates, and you're supposed to just pick the one that seems to work the best. My program contacts all of the servers and figures out which one will give you the fastest downloads. What's really cool about this program is that I made it multi-threaded, so it can be talking with multiple servers at the same time. This makes the program run about 20 times as fast as it otherwise would. It's the first multi-threaded program I've ever written, so I was happy I could get it to work.

For Memorial Day, Tara and I went to a park in Provo Canyon and had a barbecue and a campfire. It was really pretty there because the park is in a valley between some really tall tree-covered mountains, and there is a really clear stream that runs past it. We managed to get a picnic table with a barbecue and fire pit that was only 30 feet from the stream. The food was good and the fire was fun!

On Saturday we got our garden planted. It's a bit late because we had to clear and till the ground by hand. We planted lettuce, marigolds, onions, spinach, dill, tomatoes, beans, broccoli, and cauliflower. Today, only four days later, the spinach was already coming up. It's really fun to have a house instead of an apartment and be able to have a yard where we can do what we want.