RobbieTheGeek.Com

I am lucky enough to work in a situation where I get to go to instructor-led training for technology that I support. So for the record, this week I am in a HP OpenView Administration I class. All I have to say is wow, this is going to be brutal. For those that aren't familiar with this product I will give you the geek's sales pitch..."Hi there would you like to be more proactive? Would you like to make you bosses see what it is that IT supports and prove to them you are doing your job?

Training is over and I would have to say that the training did it's job. I feel a little more comfortable with HP OpenView for Windows and I am impressed with the scope of the monitoring available through OVOW. I didn't drink the HP Kool-Aid but I would have to say that the product allows you to know when there are events anywhere within your IT enviornment, and take actions on that knowledge. I still think that there is a total disconnect from IT folks and their senior management and HP sales.

Today I rebooted my dual booting machine and returned to my Ubuntu 5.10 (Breezy the Badger) installation. One thing that I am smacked with immediately is the fact that everything is faster, browsing the web is faster, instant messaging patching,...EVERYTHING. I am home today because of a strike that is in place in New York, the local union Transit Workers Union 100 is striking against the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Ok so I promised I would return to this subject with my Ubuntu install, and see how I could get podcasts automagically downloaded and ready for my listening pleasure. Ok so after doing a little research, and banging my head against the wall for a few hours, I came across a great way to handle this. A little shell script called BashPodder, a tiny little bash shell that is configured via a flat text file (bp.conf). Ok so I have an account at Odeo, and my queue there can be reached through and RSS feed. So I copied the RSS feed into the config file and ran the shell script and poof!