A Rap @hyatt Customer Service Request

It's 2am and the wireless is down
@Hyatt ... #pycon
That's why my face is wearing a frown
Even though I'm at ... #pycon

I love all these Canadians
And Montreal is cool
But don't you know how not to run a network
fool?

If I were a rapper
Then you'd have to call me Milton
Because frankly I get much better service
@Hilton

I'm a businessman myself
And I know we're hard to please
So kindly please allow me
To put you at your ease

Your people are delightful
And as helpful as the best
I want to help, not diss you
I'm not angry like the rest

The food is amazing
And the bar could be geek heaven
If only you weren't calling
For last orders at eleven

We're virtual and sleepless
So we need your help to live
And most of us are more than glad
To pay for what you give

But imagine you're away from home
And want to call your Mom
The Internet's our family
So you've just dropped a bomb

I've had my ups and downs with Hyatt
Over many years
But never felt before
That it should fall on other's ears

I run conferences, for Pete's sake
And I want to spend my money
If only I could reach someone
And I'm NOT being funny

PyCon is my baby
So I cherish it somewhat
But this has harshed my mellow
And just not helped a lot

We're bunch of simple geeks
Who get together every year
We aren't demanding, I don't think
Our simple needs are clear

I don't believe that I could run
Your enterprise right here
It's difficult, and operations
Aren't my thing I fear

So please, don't take this badly
But you've really disappointed
Which is why a kindly soul like me
Has made remarks so pointed

We will help you if we can
We know you pay a lot for bits
But I have to know if web sites
Are receiving any hits

You've cut me off, I'm blind
And so I hope there's nothing funky
Happening to my servers
While I'm sat here getting skunky

Enough, I've made my point
So I must stop before I'm rude
The Internet's my meat and drink
You've left me without food.

trying-to-help-while-disappointed-ly yr's  - steve

Ubuntu 9.10 Wireless on Dell Precision M6300

For reasons too complex to go into (they involve a talking penguin) I have just installed Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic) 32-bit on the laptop I was talking about when I wrote this post last June.

Whether it's the change to 32-bit or the change to Karmic I do not know, but I am happy to report that everything works like a dream: I just had to install the BroadCom proprietary driver (boo! - I wish companies like Nvidias and BroadCom would cooperate more fully with the open source world) and suddenly I could disconnect the wires and away I went. This post is being made from the very laptop about which I complained so bitterly eight months ago.

Ubuntu 9.04 Wireless on Dell Precision M6300

The best laid plans of mice and men have yet again gone agley. For a couple of years now I have been running Vista on my Precision workstation. In order to move to the Linux platform I bought a 320 GB 2.5" disk (amazing value at $90) and planned to install Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope on it then migrate the Vista disk to a VirtualBox virtual machine accessing a raw patition which contained a Ghost copy of the original Windows partition.

Alas I couldn't get the virtual to boot, and anyway the Vista load is starting to show signs of instability (hardly surprising in a Windows installation that's been poked and prodded as heavily as mine has), so I have bitten the bullet and am reinstalling Vista from scratch with a virtual filesystem. The partition that was going to host Vista is now an ext4 filsystem which can host whatever I want or need to put on it. I have installed VirtualBox, and Vista loaded up like a champ.

The only (current) fly in the ointment is that for the life of me I can't get wireless networking to work. Unfortunately Command Line Idiot appears to be right when he or she writes:

There are roughly 19 billion tutorials for how to do anything you would ever want to do with Ubuntu. Unfortunately, they are all written by a 12 year old who knows even less than you.

Some of the advice I have seen is so cryptic as to be incomprehensible, some refer to drivers I don't have and don't seem to be able to download, the majority of it its either apparently irrelevant or clearly wrong.

So, crazy fundamentalist or not, I'll be happy to hear from you if you can tell me how to get the wireless networking going.

Where's Sean Reifschneider When You Need Him?

Another conference, another sucky network. OSCON's wireless network hasn't performed as well as I'd have expected it to from my experience four years ago. With roughly 2,500 delegates in a large area there's no reason why I should be unable to associate with an access point.

Sean's setup and management of the 2007 PyCon in Dallas remains the best conference network I have used.

All this seems very effete, of course, given that ten years ago there was no such thing as a public wireless network. But as technology moves on expectations move up, and many people this week have suggested OSCON's network will need to improve for next year.