Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Second opinions

http://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/second-opinion-how-302669.html

Via (p. 12):
https://www.blueshieldca.com/sites/documents/calpershbo/plans-benefits/NVbasic.pdf
If there is a question about your diagnosis, plan
of care, or recommended treatment, including
surgery, or if additional information concerning
your condition would be helpful in determining
the diagnosis and the most appropriate plan of
treatment, or if the current treatment plan is not
improving your medical condition, you may ask
your Personal Physician to refer you to another
physician for a second medical opinion. The
second opinion will be provided on an expedited basis, where appropriate. If you are requesting a second opinion about care you
received from your Personal Physician, the
second opinion will be provided by a physician
within the same medical group or IPA as your
Personal Physician. If you are requesting a
second opinion about care received from a specialist, the second opinion may be provided by
any Plan specialist of the same or equivalent
specialty. All second opinion consultations must
be authorized. Your Personal Physician may also
decide to offer such a referral even if you do not
request it. State law requires that health plans
disclose to Members, upon request, the timelines for responding to a request for a second
medical opinion. To request a copy of these
timelines, you may call the Member Services
Department at the number listed on the back
cover of this booklet.

http://www.hillphysicians.com/phydir/PhyPracGrp.aspx?GID=Sacramento+Gastroenterology+Medical+Group

Sunday, April 28, 2013

Radio songs

Heard on Sacramento 88.9 FM:

Anton Heberle: Concerto for recorder and orchestra in G major - Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; Pinchas Zukerman, conductor; Michala Petri, recorder; Label: Philips; Number: 420243
I think this is the nicest recorder piece I have ever heard...though not the biggest recorder fan.

Fantastic Scherzo

Benjamin Britten: Matinees musicales (Suite after Rossini) Opus 24 - Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra; Okko Kamu, conductor; Label: Ondine; Number: 825

Malcolm Arnold: Four Scottish Dances Opus 59 - Boston Pops Orchestra; Keith Lockhart, conductor; Label: Rca; Number: 68901

Heard on 100.5 FM:

Of Monsters and Men - Little Talks

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Day one - Configuring Debian GNU/Linux 7 "wheezy"

2013-04-21

Reviewing previous customizations

I´m going through many of the previous customizations from the previous stable release:
Cosmos screensaver

Looks like XFCE ships without the cosmos screensaver...

  • Unfortunately, gnome-screensaver, which has the cosmos screensaver, requires gnome-session
  • Just for fun, I installed all the xscreensaver options: 
    • sudo apt-get install xscreensaver-data xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra rss-glx
  • To configure xscreensaver to display a slideshow of images:
    • Applications Menu > Settings > Screensaver
    • Mode = Only One Screen Saver
    • Screen Saver = GLSlideshow
    • Blank After = 30 minutes
    • Cycle After = 3 minutes
    • Select button ¨Settings¨
      • Select button "Advanced"
      • Command Line =
        glslideshow -root -delay 84615 -duration 17 -zoom 100 -pan 17 -fade 3 -fps
      • Letterbox = Checked, everything else unchecked
      • Select button ¨OK¨ to return to the main window
    • Select tab ¨Advanced¨
      • Select checkbox ¨Choose Random Image¨ and set to
        /usr/share/backgrounds/cosmos
      • Uncheck ¨Grab Desktop Images¨
  • It appears all my old cosmos images got deleted though...so I chose to get them back manually:
    • cd /usr/share/backgrounds/cosmos
    • sudo wget https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/blue-marble-west.jpg?id=2.91.90 -O blue-marble-west.jpg
    • sudo wget https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/cloud.jpg?id=2.91.90 -O cloud.jpg
    • sudo wget https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/comet.jpg?id=2.91.90 -O comet.jpg
    • sudo wget https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/earth-horizon.jpg?id=2.91.90 -O earth-horizon.jpg
    • sudo wget https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/galaxy-ngc3370.jpg?id=2.91.90 -O galaxy-ngc3370.jpg
    • sudo wget https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/helix-nebula.jpg?id=2.91.90 -O helix-nebula.jpg
    • sudo wget https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/jupiter.jpg?id=2.91.90 -O jupiter.jpg
    • sudo wget https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/sombrero.jpg?id=2.91.90 -O sombrero.jpg
    • sudo wget https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/whirlpool.jpg?id=2.91.90 -O whirlpool.jpg
  • All that work, because, as I said before, ...Carl Sagan...Cosmos
Printing

It appears I lost all my UI printer configuration utilities, so, via:

sudo apt-get install system-config-printer

This opens up Applications Menu > System > Printing

Vim colors

sudo cp /usr/share/vim/vim73/colors/koehler.vim /usr/share/vim/vim73/colors/koehler.vim.bak

Configure vim  .vimrc

Configure XFCE4 Terminal 0.4.8 colors

Via my 2008 post:
  • Font: Monospace Regular 10 pt.
  • Text Color="0,255,0"
  • Background Color="0,55,0"
  • Default Bold Background="85,85,85"
  • Lines of scrollback: 9999
To set the preferred geometry (via):
  • vim ~/.config/Terminal/terminalrc
  • MiscDefaultGeometry=100x100+150+0
Eclipse
Geany
Citrix Receiver 
Filezilla
Amarok 2.5-GIT
Loads OK

Headphone jack sensing 
Not tested

Java plugin
sudo apt-get install icedtea-plugin
Restart browser

VLC
Seems unable to play YouTube files

To-Do:
Ghostview
Install Adobe Reader 9.5.3
Volume control sound theme
Java

gnome-screensaver

Reading up on gnome-screensaver this evening, as I upgrade from Debian Squeeze to Wheezy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnome-screensaver

Tag 2.91.91 removed the cosmos images on 2011-03-08:
https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/commit/?id=2.91.91

The commit to remove the Cosmos screensaver images, from 2011-03-06:
https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/commit/?id=897dc79ba04b3cfb49b93f6bd03fa2ce59a274b7

Squeeze: gnome-screensaver 2.30.0-2squeeze1
http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/i386/gnome-screensaver/filelist

Wheezy: gnome-screensaver 3.4.1-1
http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/i386/gnome-screensaver/filelist

I had an "ah ha" moment while reading the description of why the gnome-screensavers chose the route they did to remove the Cosmos screensaver. At first, I think I reacted as many did--with surprise and indignation. However, their argument seems reasonable and they seem very open to explaining their actions.

I must say, however--playing with all the xscreensaver options brought some nostalgic joy to my heart this evening. : o ) I'm going to go ahead and salvage the old Cosmos screen saver images for xscreensaver, instead:

  1. https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/blue-marble-west.jpg?id=2.91.90
  2. https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/cloud.jpg?id=2.91.90
  3. https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/comet.jpg?id=2.91.90
  4. https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/earth-horizon.jpg?id=2.91.90
  5. https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/galaxy-ngc3370.jpg?id=2.91.90
  6. https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/helix-nebula.jpg?id=2.91.90
  7. https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/jupiter.jpg?id=2.91.90
  8. https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/sombrero.jpg?id=2.91.90
  9. https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-screensaver/plain/data/images/cosmos/whirlpool.jpg?id=2.91.90

Upgrading to Debian GNU/Linux 7 "wheezy" + XFCE

Last night I took the plunge and upgraded my Debian GNU/Linux 6 "squeeze" install to "wheezy"...here's my running log of updates.

2013-04-20

Referencing http://www.debian.org/releases/testing/i386/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html:

sudo dpkg --audit
grep -q '^flags.*\bpae\b' /proc/cpuinfo && echo yes || echo no  
(returned "no"...old hw without pae : o ( )

sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list
--changed all my sources from squeeze to wheezy. Note: commented out backports for wheezy
sudo apt-get update
--updated sources...this took a few minutes
sudo apt-get -o APT::Get::Trivial-Only=true dist-upgrade
-- this told me whether or not I had enough space for the upgrade (yes)
sudo apt-get upgrade
-- this upgraded a bunch of stuff...took about 45 minutes

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -o APT::Immediate-Configure=0 APT::Force-LoopBreak=1
-- the main upgrade...I received errors when I just ran "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade": "E: Could not perform immediate configuration on 'package'.  Please see man 5 apt.conf under APT::Immediate-Configure for details." I also got an conflict/pre-depend error for xml-core and docbook-xml...ugh. So, I started uninstalling things:
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get remove default-jre

sudo apt-get remove xml-core
sudo apt-get remove gnome
sudo apt-get remove kde
sudo apt-get remove libreoffice
sudo apt-get remove openoffice.org
sudo apt-get remove gcc
sudo apt-get remove openjdk-6-jre

finally: 
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

This ran overnight.

2013-04-21

In the morning, I awoke to a screen warning about the 686 kernel. After the dist-upgrade completed, I installed the 486 kernel, as suggested:

sudo apt-get install linux-image-486
sudo apt-get remove linux-image-686
sudo apt-get remove linux-image-2.6-686
sudo apt-get install gnome
sudo apt-get install default-jre
sudo apt-get install xml-core
sudo apt-get install kde
sudo apt-get install libreoffice
sudo apt-get install openoffice.org
sudo apt-get install gcc
sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jre

sudo apt-get autoremove
-- a sanity check
sudo apt-get check
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get install google-chrome-unstable
sudo dpkg --audit

sudo apt-get remove adobereader-enu
sudo apt-get remove dhcp3-client dhcp3-common 
sudo apt-get remove gcj-jre-headless
sudo apt-get install gcj-jre-headless
sudo apt-get remove bogofilter doc-debian
sudo apt-get install bogofilter doc-debian

Done. : o )

At this point I attempted to fix my sudoers file, as per instructions. I moved /etc/sudoers to /etc/sudoers.d/mychanges ... this was a mistake, because as soon as I did, I lost the ability to sudo things. x_x After a few reboots into recovery mode I successfully copied back /etc/sudoers.d/mychanges to /etc/sudoers and removed /etc/sudoers.d/mychanges.

Next, I ran the following to remove the unneeded grub menu entries:

sudo aptitude search linux-image
sudo aptitude remove linux-image-2.6.32-5-686 linux-image-3.2.0-4-686-pae linux-image-686-pae

I installed bootlogd to record the Radeon error messages I receive during boot:

sudo apt-get install bootlogd
sudo apt-get install firmware-linux-nonfree

This solved getting Gnome3 to load with all the bells and whistles.

However, this ended up being too slow, given my hardware. So I uninstalled it, per instructions:
  • sudo aptitude purge `dpkg --get-selections | grep gnome | cut -f 1`
  • sudo aptitude -f install
  • sudo aptitude purge `dpkg --get-selections | grep deinstall | cut -f 1`
  • sudo aptitude -f install
Unfortunately, this sequence of commands led to two undesirable side-effects:
  1. Network no longer worked
    • sudo vim /etc/network/interfaces
    • sudo dhclient eth0
    • ifconfig eth1 up
    • sudo iwconfig eth1 up
    • sudo iwconfig eth1 essid {ESSID}
    • sudo dhclient eth1
  2. GDM - gone...booted into tty prompt
    • Added to ~/.xinitrc: exec ck-launch-session startxfce4
    • sudo apt-get install gdm3
At this point, everything looks like it´s pretty stable...moving on to configuration.

Other things installed:

  • wicd
  • p7zip-full
  • p7zip
  • mtools

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