New blog.

I am now officially releasing a project I and a couple friends have been working on for the past two days, inconspicuously.  As I mentioned a few posts ago, I do not publicly proclaim my faith on this blog, because that is not what this blog is for, but I have been wanting to do so another way.  A few days ago, I posted a blog post on Myspace, about teenage responsibility. It appeared to have a good response, so I decided to move it over to a real blog.  It is still very much in the development stage, so feel free to offer advice.  I fully admit and recognize my problem in the very areas I am discussing in the blog, and I belive that makes me more suited to speak in that area, as I am taking the time to study this, work on it, and pray about it.  This is not a public blogging effort for myself, this is a ministry opportunity that God has presented me, and I hope to have other people writing in it soon.

http://www.youthofeternity.blogspot.com

As I just said, it is still in the development stage.  Please give ideas and feedback on the following items:

Different title (already used it for an old blog)

Different url.  (I am terrible at naming things)

More authors. (If you are a friend/relative, do you know of any mutual friends that would be able/willing to do this?  I want to keep it confined to people I currently know, for now.)

Better format.  (need ideas to improve the blog look and layout.  I will NEVER post any third-party ads, but I will post links to good sites that I support, enjoy (theologically), and agree with.

Other.  (any ideas/feedback will be accepted)

The Project.

Sorry I have not been posting recently.  I have been working on a project, and doing some other home-based activities.  So, here are some Cnet highlights of the day that caught my eye, to keep you interested.
GTA IV nets Guinness record
First Look: AVG Anti-Virus Free 8
Video Exclusive: Asus Eee PC 900
Google extends online video lead
HBO to Apple: Bada Bing
The password that calls you
Review: Shuttle’s K-4500 Linux PC

rear-view mirror that does it all

First Look: AVG Anti-Virus Free 8

And …they… do it again.

Them.  Those People.  The Others.  The Evil Ones. The Dark Side.  The Sith. The Goa’ould. The Nazis.

The RIAA is know by many names.  These are just a few. How this …affiliation.. still exists, I have no idea.  Time after time, after TIME, I have seen articles in the news where the RIAA has sued people that had no idea what they were doing, hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions of dollars, for slight copyright infringement.

Don’t get me wrong, though.  I support the idea of bringing to justice people who break the law by stealing music, but that is NOT what the RIAA is.  The RIAA is a bunch of greedy politicians who want as much money as they can get, and are using their power to sue a bunch of innocent people, and steal their entire livelihoods, for a crime, that, if they committed, warrants a $500 fee, not a $500,000.  Cnet recently posted an article about one of the RIAA’s latest …exploits…, in which they are picking on a site known by probably everyone reading this.  Project Playlist.  What Project Playlist does, is merely search the Internet (automated, most likely), and gather all .mp3 files they can find, and link them on their site, and allow you to organize them into a playlist, and put it on any site.  That is not illegal.  It is only illegal when they are purposely and maliciously finding sites they know to be illegal, and putting their music on the site.  Admittedly, it is a fine line, but I am confident that they will win the current legal battle, because they do not actually host any music on their site (btw, I am listening to PP right now).

Now, this is TYPICAL RIAA.  They go after the unknowing distributor. Again.  Now, what they SHOULD do, is make an agreement with PP, and use their database to locate illegal music sites, and take them down.

Here are the articles: (link)(link)

What do you think Do you disagree?  agree? why?

(My Project Playlist)

(edit: stupid non-paid version of WordPress won’t let me do custom HTML/CSS. use the stand-alone link to view my playlist)

Happy Mother’s Day!

I’d just like to wish a happy Mom’s day to all the moms out there(like any of them actually read techno-geek blogs)!

With my mom and dad having adopted eight teenagers from foreign countries, and had three biological kids, and homeschooled them all, my Mom definitely out-rocks yours!  (but yours is still cool, too).

With my Grandma having been the cook at the cafeteria at Oklahoma University for a long time, and now cooks for five adults and 8 kids, she also out-rocks yours!  (and again, yours is cool too, no doubt.  Mine is just more cool.)

FOSS Triumphs again!

Sun Microsystems just released a beta version of Open Office 3!  Yes, you heard me!  The best free office suite in existence is coming out with a new version!  I have been using Open Office for the past year or two, which, at my age, means my entire career as a geek.  In my humble opinion, it is vastly superior in every way possible to Microsoft Office/Works/Word.  It has direct PDF exporting, which is convienient, and a feature that Microsoft Office lacks.  It recently came out with a new version, 2.4, which was improved in several ways, but apparently that was a prelude to an even larger release.  2.4’s biggest new feature was incredibly improved start-up times.  After the initial upload, another windows was opened instantaneously.  I was opening additional pages just for the heck of it, it was so fast.  Plus, the initial start-up time has improved, also.  Apparently, version 3 will include better Microsoft compatibilty, better integration with the Apple systems, and a sleeker interface.  I’d try the beta, but, unfortunately, it is released only for Windows and Mac, although I might try it on my Virtual Windows machine on my main Linux system.

Read the Cnet post here.

Possible Second Blog.

You probably can’t tell it from this blog, and that is deliberate, but I am a rather blatant christian, who enjoys occasional exposititional thinking/writing.  I do not proclaim my faith openly on this blog, because it is a technogeek blog, not an exspositional theology blog.  However, I would still like to pursue this, and to that point I have begun thinking about beginning another blog.  However, I am not willing to do a lot of work to make this happen if it will not work out, so I am now hosting it on my Myspace blog.  If it goes well, I will move it over to WordPress or Blogger.

Enjoy!

Smooooooth…

Ha. Ha. Ha.

I just went to myspace, using Opera, and opened a new blog post.  It then notified me that The browser I was using was incompatible with the Advanced Editor.  I clicked “ok” and it put me in the plain text version.  However, upon trying it again, I clicked “cancel” on the pop-up window.

Guess what?

Yes.  It worked.  it loaded the advanced blogging tool, without a problem.

Way to go, Myspace.

Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron review

Okay, as i mentioned earlier, I installed the new version of Ubuntu Linux, named Hardy Heron. I have been using this on my main desktop for a while, now, so I thought I might give it a review.

Given one sentence to describe it, I would say: “Stay Away.”

Having used Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon for a long time, and having seen reviews and articles about various other versions, I have come to the conclusion that this is the worst Ubuntu version to come out. Basically, just looking at it, there is no visible difference, except a slightly different wallpaper. My first point of contention was the graphics. It was a PAIN to get my Nvidia graphics card installed, I had to manually download and install the driver. In addition, the Screens And Grahpics manager that I had gotten so fond of no longer exists. I have yet to find a GUI that lets you manage your graphics cards and monitors. There is one simple window in which you can change your screen resolution and refresh rate, but that is all. To change my graphics properties, I have to boot into Recovery Mode. However, Recovery mode has been improved. When booting into it, a blue screen comes up with three options: Boot into normal mode, repair graphics, and boot into command line. This is a big bonus, whenever I had to repair the graphics via Recovery Mode in Gutsy, it was a PAIN, with my limited UNIX knowledge. However, as I mentioned earlier, I got Windows and Hardy Heron running simultaneously. However, this might also be possible on Gutsy, I do not know. Also, I have had some compatibility issues. VMware got trashed, and FF3b5 crashes more often. Also, that is another bone of contention. They installed a beta version of a browser in a full public release of the OS. No offense to them, but that is a …dumb… idea.

Other than that, I have not had any major problems, at least that I can think of. If you are a normal home user, looking for a more stable OS than Windows, you would not have a problem. However, for the more hardcore users, I would suggest you stick to Gutsy 7.10

Here is a link to Ubuntu, if you are interested in it, and do not yet use it (if that is possible).

Charlie is a Puppy!!!!!

Linux has been successfully installed on Charlie.  However, I gave up on Ubuntu, it is designed for machines newer than my old lappy, apparently.  I ended up installing Puppy Linux on the machine, which is ironic, actually, since I named Charlie after our dog, who showed up one day, injured, hungry, and apparently very old (just injured, actually).  It is working out very well, the OS is a lot better now than it used to be, when I last used it.  Screenshots are included.  I have Open Office installed, and Firefox.  That is all that matters.  But, hey, a little eye candy can’t hurt!  (still working on finding a good dock.

Vi-Buntu.

I complain about Windows a lot, and Vista in particular.  A lot. However, there is always one thing that I have liked about Vista:  The Ultimate theme.  Several months ago, I wrote about an article about some free software that made XP look like Vista Ultimate.   Also, I recently wrote an article about running Windows and Ubuntu simultaneously.  Also, as every person that has any experience with Ubuntu knows, it is highly customizable.  So… ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to… Vi-Buntu! (oh, and that IS XP.)