Category: Uncategorized

All up-to-date now!

Manuel Marques February 15, 2015 No Comments Uncategorized ,

Up-to-date!

This weekend I finally updated my laptop to Fedora 21. Initially I was thinking about doing a complete clean install but ultimately the usual lethal combination of laziness and too much to do forced me into upgrading it directly using fedup. Well, it did what it had to do (upgrading about 3500 packages, took it about an hour or so including the downloads on the internet connection I have at home) and it all went smoothly without any dramas.

The only annoyance I found (but I had seen it before when I did the clean install of F21 on the Dell) was that Nautilus didn’t have a mimetype association with .lyx files (hence LyX would not even appear on the “Open With…” list, even though I could launch it from the application list). Editing ~/.config/mimeapps.list sorted the problem quickly, though. 🙂

Speed-wise it is more or less the same thing as before (I can’t expect any miracles out of a 2010 Core 2 Duo laptop running on an Intel graphics card, right? 🙂 ), but GNOME is definitely more stable. And some of the things that were giving me a lot of grief before, such as file sharing and navigating through Windows shares are working seamlessly (I even managed to stream content directly to my Raspberry Pi using rygel without having to configure it (other than activating the “Media Share” option in gnome-shell settings). Brilliant work!

Not to mention the updated apps – I am very happy with the latest version of Inkscape, which includes snapping corners and measuring tools! And the inclusion of California, the official GNOME Shell calendar, in the main repositories was also great (I’m getting a bit fed up of the sluggishness of Evolution when it comes to the rest of the PIM apps – e-mail is mostly fine, not to mention it being the only Linux client which can deal with my university’s Exchange server!…).

Well done guys, things are looking great for GNOME! (and Fedora, too…)

I “fixed” the computer!

Manuel Marques February 7, 2015 No Comments Uncategorized , , ,

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I got a new toy quite recently – a (new-ish, for my standards) Dell workstation which will allow me to leave the ThinkPad at home! (at 2-2.5 kg it is still a bit of a heavy beast, especially when I’m already carrying lunch+gym gear on a heavyish (~20 kg) commuter bike!)

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All was not well, though. Even though it came with no operating system it still featured the horrid “Designed for Windows Vista” sticker on its pretty front. No more, though – it has been replaced with a “Powered by Fedora Linux” one!

(I should definitely print it in colour, though)

Installed Fedora 21 with the latest GNOME and it is running very smoothly (even with only 2 GB of RAM – 4 more on the way!). One of the major grudges I was having was related to connecting to Windows shares on the network (both the central School’s server and other workstations on the network) – the latest version actually works properly! I can see all the file servers directly from Nautilus, and the whole experience seems a lot more enjoyable, now.

I now need to do the same on my laptop… if only I could get some time to do it, though! 🙁

So, yeah…

Manuel Marques January 22, 2015 No Comments Uncategorized ,

… I’m back in the island. (I definitely should commit myself to improve the diversity of my blog post titles! 🙂 ) Actually, I’ve been back for a while now (couple of weeks) but things have been hectic (predictably…) and sitting here for 10 mins writing a blog post requires the right state of mind (I’m ditching my 10k-erg session for this, BTW… 😉 ).

Definitely missing Porto and everybody there, even though I have already bought my Easter flights and I should be back in a couple of months. It gets better as time goes by, but it always feels like I’m leaving everything there in “suspended animation” from my part, only to realise whenever I return that it wasn’t the case at all.

Anyway, enough with the sentimentalisms – progress, moving on. I finally finished my first batch of ~60-70 lab reports I had to mark (great Xmas present, I should say), went further regarding a few publications and experimental work we’ve been doing but I am no closer with regards to knowing what I want to do next. (well, I need to finish my PhD dissertation, but I knew that already 🙂 )

We had snow for a morning here – hooray! I’m still mesmerised with the sight of falling snow (being a southerner I had never seen snow falling until I came to the UK – in Porto it snows every 20-odd years or so), and the ground looked so white and pristine afterwards. Unfortunately the weather is still too warm (tell that to the people back home! 😛 ) for the snow to settle, and by the time I went home there was no more of it.

Apart from that, things have been quiet, just a succession of days where work is followed by a lovely bike commute home (even with these cold, dark days!). After spending 3 weeks home with my family I find it quite relaxing to have my own sorting out to do and my own meals to prepare – I would have found the sheer thought of that absolutely daunting three years ago!

Right, all done for now. Let’s see if I will be able to update this more frequently over the coming weeks, probably with smaller (and less introspective) posts. Although this has been one of those ‘politician-style’ promises…

S Silvestre do Porto 2014!

Manuel Marques December 31, 2014 No Comments Uncategorized , , ,

And it is done, yet another S Silvestre! This year I was quite fortunate to have been able to train with the guys from my home club for a week and a half before the actual race, which was good fun (and we have a lot of big climbs on the banks of the river to practise our hill running!).

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what a great bunch of people!

I ended up with pretty much the same time as last year (around 43:30 for 10k) which wasn’t stellar, and to be absolutely honest I think I was overly conservative with my effort – the first climb went on OK, but after it I let myself fall behind a bit. Furthermore, running downhill is not one of my best skills, hence I kept being overtaken there 🙂

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less than a km to go here! And the weather was simply spectacular!

Still, it was a nice race to finish the year properly, with the bonus of a post-race meal at our local Pizza Hut – featuring an obscene amount of pizza which made the race feel like piece of cake compared to finishing that very last slice!

Wrapping up the year!…

Manuel Marques December 31, 2014 No Comments Uncategorized , ,

So, here we are, 2014 almost over (indeed it is 2015 already in some parts of the globe!) and I have yet to write my year wrapping-up post in here. Since I have better things to do than to be here on the computer let’s get started! 🙂

2014 was good to me, broadly speaking – looking back, I had some fun, visited a few places, ran a few races, and progressed in my work. Definitely not a bad year, and I dare say it might have been one of the quietest and most relaxed I’ve had so far (and yes, I am a PhD student, I should be stressed!). I reckon this is the calm before the storm… as 2015 creeps in, I can already see this is going to be a year of decisions – I have to start looking beyond my thesis and my PhD as I’m due to submit my thesis at the end of this coming year, and I have to write the aforementioned thesis, too.

Where am I going to go? What am I going to be working on, 1 1/2 years from now? Those are very legitimate and interesting questions, to which I have no answer at the moment, unfortunately. I’m hoping that by this coming Summer I already have some of the answers.

So yes, 2014 was a piece of cake compared to what is coming!… 🙂 To sum it up, a terrific 2015 to all of my readers, may this coming year bring you plenty of great accomplishments!

More tests with the action camera…

Manuel Marques December 13, 2014 No Comments Uncategorized

Last weekend, after having done a little service to my bike (definitely it was needing it! Muck and dirt all over the chain, and the frame was coated with hard mud everywhere!…) I went on a little trip to Chartham, which is a village close to Canterbury on the banks of the Great Stour.

There’s a nice cycle path there, and given that it was a glorious sunny day (albeit a chilly one) I decided to take the action camera for a spin – mounted it on the handlebar and off I went!

(I sped up the video to spare you a long viewing time. Enjoy!)

Thermal amplitudes? :)

Manuel Marques December 5, 2014 No Comments Uncategorized

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Yesterday it was ‘3-4 degrees C’ day – cycling to work in the morning, 3 degrees; going for a quick run in the woods at lunchtime, 3 degrees; and in the evening while preparing to go home, again 3 degrees. Amazingly, it kept that temperature through the night — there was no frost over the car this morning!

(but that is going to change very soon.. I heard that tomorrow is going to be very chilly! 🙂 )

Schwalbe Marathons!

Manuel Marques November 8, 2014 No Comments Uncategorized , , , , ,

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Indeed I “pimped” up my ride today with a pair of Schwalbe Marathons from Chain Reaction. I got two 700 x 28c, as I do tend to overload the bike quite a lot and a 25c would just be silly (and I came to that conclusion myself, after wrongly ordering one from eBay… I could feel every single bump hitting the rim!!).

Anyway, it wasn’t too hard to fit (especially when I had H. around to help, him being one of my housemates and a terrific bike mechanic! 🙂 ), the hardest bit was to remove the old 25c tyre I had on my rear wheel!

I went for a little test drive and it definitely feels a lot nicer, especially since now I can pump it to the required level (around 5-6 bar) with confidence that the tube will not blow up (I got some nice new inner tubes as well). But the best thing is really the puncture protection – hopefully these tyres will withstand at least a year of harsh treatment! (I ride in a mix of road and partially paved tracks)

Well, if you don’t see any further posts ranting about me having had a puncture, it is a sign that the tyres are actually quite good 🙂

And now, on to actually do some work!

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