The one true faith
I’m very much with these guys:
German election thriller
It was a long night, but thankfully by midnight GMT (2am CE Summer Time) everyone in Berlin realised that there wouldn’t be any more big developments till the next morning, and I was able to pack up and go home for some kip.
I must say, it was a pretty exciting night, though some journalists lost sight of the importance of coalition talks by focusing so much on the precise percentage outcome of the vote, and the distribution of seats in the Bundestag. While this may be psychologically important, the key question is who will negotiate a coalition with whom: who is prepared to go back on their word, or drop their scruples, and share power with their enemies.
The fact is, neither a CDU-FDP nor SPD-Green coalitions are possible on their own. That leaves the CDU-SPD grand coalition, for which Schroeder’s party would have to neutralise their leader first, or a coalition involving both the Greens and the FDP – unlikely partners to say the least. The main stumbling block at the moment seems to be Schroeder: without him, the SPD would probably not have pulled off such a comback. But with him, they are unlikely to be part of a new government. In his machiavellian genius Schroeder has managed to outmanouvre himself.
Or has he got one last ace up his sleeve?
1&1 and on and on
If you want the short version of the rant that follows, here it is: don’t use 1&1 Internet for your web hosting.
Here’s the long version: A few years ago I decided to get serious about some of my websites, and bought into a 1&1 (sometimes known as 1and1) web hosting package. For those of you who don’t know 1&1, they are Europe’s largest web hosting company, based in Karlsruhe, Germany. The key feature that drew me to 1&1 was this: they are cheap. I learnt about cheap the hard way.
Over the course of five years I encountered numerous issues, mostly to do with the technical limitations of my hosting package. Any good web host will spell out clearly what they offer and, if asked nicely, will go out of their way to help customers who need that little bit more. 1&1 won’t do that. If you want more, you upgrade to the next package. If you want more again, you upgrade again. In the end I was paying them ?200 per year to host six domains, no fancy stuff, just average hosting with FTP, two MySQL DBs, some stats and some useless gimmicks like on-site IM and pre-configured mailing list scripts. Whenever I wanted to install something out of the ordinary, 1&1 either ignored me or said I had to upgrade yet again. In some cases all that was needed was a small modification of the server to include a particular Mod, such as modrewrite (essential for search engine friendly URLs).
When the time finally came for me to reevaluate my web hosting, I found that I could have got the same package that 1&1 was offering me for much, much less from a US host. Dreamhost, Bluehost, etc all came out at around ?100 per ear, as opposed to 1&1’s ?200. What’s more, they have competent customer support which will give you a proper answer to your questions, unlike 1&1 which seems to have bots for customer support.
The most frustrating thing about 1&1, in the end, was the fact that because it took them so long to process my cancellation (which I had to send in repeatedly, until they finally took notice), I ended up paying a full three months’ hosting fee for nothing. Nada. All my domains and files have moved, but 1&1 insist I still owe them money for dead and unused hosting space. It’s enough to make you want to scream.
Again: don’t use 1&1. 1&1 ist scheisse.
UPDATE: Apprently I’m not the only one who has issues with 1&1. Chris Worfolk doesn’t think much of 1&1 customer service either.
Netgear WG311 on Linux
One of the last pieces of the puzzle that is my migration to Gentoo fell into place this morning: getting my Netgear WG311 (v1) wireless card to work. All the info I needed came from a Gentoo Forum post.
The two things I had trouble with were a) removing a symbolic link that was messing up my ath0 (the ‘unlink’ command did the trip) and b) formatting my WEP keyy correctly (unfortunately my access point doesn’t allow for WPA encryption). The solution to the latter was to write it in a continuous hexadecimal string, and make sure there were no quote marks around it in /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf .
Gentoo progress
When I first heard about the Gentoo Linux distribution, it sounded a bit daunting to me: compiling everything from source? Lots of command line work?
In the end, I’m managed to rebuild my system from scratch in only a few days, and the main reason why it took so long is because everything is being compiled, rather than installed as pre-built binaries.
The network works; X and KDE work; audio works. All of this is largely down to the brilliantly clear Gentoo documentation, and the Gentoo How To Wiki.
Berliner Guardian: first impressions
So here it is, the Berliner Guardian. Or should that be the Berliner-formatted Guardian? More on that question later.
It’s smaller (duh) more colourful (but only just), and it has a new masthead and font. The masthead, as much as I liked the old one, I’m prepared to forgive. The new one is a bit straight, but it’s not as nice and authoritative look to it. I’ll get used to it. The font, well that I’m not so sure about. It’s still just about a serif, but only just. It’s lost a bit of its roundness, and makes the paper look colder, somehow.
The Berliner format appears to have introduced a new layout grid: five columns instead of eight. You might think this is dictated by the smaller page width, but that’s not the only reason: columns have also become wider, by about 20%. Comparing the new and the old format Guardian, I’d say that’s actually a good thing. It must have been a huge pain for the subs to have to deal with such narrow columns, and now we’ll hopefully see fewer hyphens, widows and orphans.
The front page has lost its distinctive giant main headline. Maybe they’ll bring it back for big stories, but at the moment there’s only space for three 14-character lines to lead with in 36p, and that’s not much. The front page pic has also been reduced and become a narrow portrait-format image which crosses the fold. I think this might prove a bit of a problem for the picture editor, as the news simply doesn’t always come in narrow portrait format. The overall look of the front page is quite serious: it doesn’t have the playful look that some of the old issues had. And it also lacks a cartoon, a huge minus in my opinion, but others might disagree.
Page two has change substantially, with the 2-Minute Guardian dropped in favour of a thirty second version. They’ve introduced a ‘today on the web’ feature on page two, which I think is probably a good idea. Previously, mentions of the Guardian website seemed to float all over the paper, and it’s good to have some certainty about where to look now.
The inside pages look colourful, as you would expect of a full-colour paper, but the designers haven’t overdone it, which is good. I’m not sure about the green web references: green is always a difficult colour in news print, and my copy has got quite a few blurred URLs. Drop the green, I say.
Where the old Guardian had a different font for boxed-out content, the new one sticks to Guardian Egyptian. But there’s a new font for the comment piece headlines, which I can understand from a layout and design point of view, but I really don’t like the narrow, insipid typeface they’ve chosen. Again, I’m sure I’ll get used to it.
The giant picture in the middle of the paper is a definite success. Although some might question whether a pull-out-and-keep style image of Belfast riots is appropriate, I really like the striking image they’ve used for this issue. A definite present to the picture editor, I’d say.
The sections – and even their sequence – seems to have been kept as was. Moving them about might have annoyed a lot of people.
The comment and letters section looks good, though I’m not a fan of picture bylines and seeing people in colour doesn’t improve them. I suppose most people do like to be able to put a face to a name though, so I’ll submit to majority preference.
The weekly special sections (media, society, etc) have, interestingly enough, more or less retained their format, which is a pleasant surprise. The media section looks beefy, and that’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned. G2 is a disaster though: it looks flimsy, like one of those antipodean freesheets you get at tube stations, or like – horror of horrors – the bland, tabloid Times.
So, finally, to the content: I haven’t read most of the paper, but the Guardian appears to have retained it’s distinctive style of newstelling. What confused me, though, was the fact that a lot of the shorter articles appeared to have been cut off half-way through. Snip, gone. And while I’m all for news-in-briefs, do they really need a byline? Perhaps it’ll take the Guardian’s journos a while to get used to writing copy for the smaller space available to them. And that’s the crux of it: there will be less space, however many pages you want to add to the paper. Articles will be shorter, and that will pose a challenge to writers and editors wanting to tell the whole story, not just a brief snippet.
European newspapers like Le Monde and the Berliner manage to convey the news, but they don’t have the comprehensive, distinct style of the old Guardian. And I don’t think you can make up the loss of column space with a more authoritative-looking design.
Only time will tell whether we’ve lost the old Guardian forever and the Berliner Guardian is really a completely different newspaper. This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing. Long-time Guardian readers (including me) will mourn its passing, but there’s definitely a gap in the UK newspaper market for a serious, intelligent, liberal newspaper that appeals to the masses. If they can haul in, say, 100,000 new readers with this redesign, I’d say it’s a good move, however much Lefty die-hards moan. But the old Guardian was also one of the few papers to still evoke a distinct sense of belonging among its readers (the Sun is probably the only other one that still does), and in my opinion it’s vital that the new Guardian tries to re-establish that sense of community, the sense that its readers are part of the paper, not just consumers. Otherwise, why choose the Guardian over Metro?
Live-blogging the Berliner
Despite my earlier sceptic comments about the Guardian’s change of format, I find I’m avidly reading Victor Keegan’s live blog of the relaunch party. I’ll probably head down to Brixton tube soon to get my first copy. That’s how sad I am.
Configuring usb mouse and uk keyboard in xorg.conf
I’ve revived the Linux subsection of this blog because I’m currently installing Gentoo Linux on my system and I’d like a place to save and share the little problems and solutions I encounter. Today: configuring a usb mouse and a UK keyboard in xorg.conf.
The key to getting your generic two-button USB mouse to work is to add (or edit the line)
–
Option “Device” “/dev/input/mice”
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under the InputDevice/Mouse0 section of your xorg.conf file.
The solution to your UK keyboard woes is to add (or edit the line)
–
Option “XkbLayout” “gb”
–
under the InputDevice/Keyboard0 section of your xorg.conf file.
This is assuming that, like me, you simply used Xorg -configure to probe and set up a vanilla flavoured xorg.conf file. For more information on doing this, see here.
Berliner Format
So I was reading the last broadsheet sized edition of the Guardian yesterday and I thought to myself: this Berliner redesign, it’s going to be rubbish. Not only does the dummy I’ve seen look like a boring copy of the Indy (no mean feat), but they’re ditching some of the Guardian’s best-loved sections and columns: Life (the science section) and Pass Notes to name just two. is Rusbridger genuinely trying to get rid of large sections of his readership too: those who buy the Guardian out of loyalty to something they’ve grown very familiar with over the last few years? Call me old-fashioned, but from a marketing and journalistic point of view I can’t see the sense in moving to Berliner. But maybe the change is just part of some master-plan to rejig the whole Guardian/Observer enterprise of which we are blissfully unaware…
Cuba diary
Over the next few weeks I’ll be putting a diary – of sorts – from a recent trip round Cuba on this site, as well as some observations about the country and tips on getting by there from a first-time visitor. Everything will be filed under the category ‘Cuba’, so click on the category link if you’re interested because the entries might not be dated for this month.
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About
Musings of a wire reporter in Geneva. Feel free to contact me with your questions about journalism, Switzerland, or anything else I write about on this blog.
