Summer Project: Linux OS/distro Testing.

Obviously, I enjoy messing around with various Linux operating systems and programs, seeing what they are capable of, and blogging about it.  Well, I have decided to take this to the next level.  Recently, we replaced the hard drive in the family computer, because it was several years old, and appeared to be crashing.  The computer is pretty decent (1.8GHz, 1GB RAM), so we reinstalled Wimpdows, and got it a good video card, and designated it the gaming computer of the family, because we recently got a new computer that ran Vista, and we did not want to run our games on it for obvious reasons.  well, anyway, back on the original topic, we ended up tossing the old 80GB HDD in the garage, and leaving it there.  However, I thought that it might work better as a freshly-formatted EXT3 HDD, instead of a several-year-old NTFS one.  But, since we have had problems in the past with it, it would most likely not be a good HDD to use as my main one.  So, I decided I would use it to test different Linux OSes, so I would not have to use a virtual machine, since that makes it slower (harder to accurately judge it’s speed), and less compatible, and you are not able to test it’s hardware compatibility.  To that end, I formatted it into 4 partitions, 1 swap, and 3 EXT3 OS partitions.  Throughout the rest of the Summer, I will be testing different Linux distros and OSes.  Currently I am testing Famelix, next on the list is Mint, and after that is Debian.

I installed Famelix a couple of days ago. however, I will not give a review until some time next week, as I will be out of town this weekend.

Stay Tuned!

Hardy Heron, HERE I COME!!!!

I was very reluctant about upgrading to Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron, and was running it in a VM, to test it. However, I then ran into this. Needless to say, once I read it, I immediately opened my Upgrade Manager, and told it to upgrade to Hardy. 21 minutes left. More to come, once I get it up and working. Meantime, here is a screenshot from the article above, to whet your appetite:

(credit: Lifehacker)

How to: Listen to music online. Your way.

I have mentioned Pandora and Last.fm before, and have highlighted the pros and cons of both of these online radio stations.  Today, I would like to introduce you to another alternative.

Both Pandora and Last.fm allow you to select an artist or genre, and it will display similar music.  However, haven’t you ever wanted to listen to just one particular artist, or some popular song that you really like, but just cannot get it to play on Pandora/Last.fm?   Well, I have a solution for you, my friend.

Myspace.

I know what you are thinking, you know about Myspace Music, but do not like to use it for listening to music on a regular  basis, because you first have to locate the artist’s page, and, when you do, you have to load this HUGE page, with tons of artwork, youtube/myspace videos, a heck of a lot of flash applications, and then the media player on the page.  Well, in case you do not know this yet, Myspace, several months ago, added an option to pop-out the media player in a seperate window.  Great.  That’s no good, you still have to load the page, right?

Wrong.

This is what I do:  I go to my favorite artist’s page, and open the pop-up media player.  Then, I expand the window so it is no longer the size of the flash app. Then, I click on the white space between the app and the window border, to deselect the app (note: This step is not always necessary).  Then, I press CTR+D.  That bookmarks the page.  I do this to all of my favorite bands.  Then, I simply click the approproate bookmark whenever I want to listen to that band, and it brings up just the media player on the page.  Here is an example (Linkin Park)

These flash apps are relatively light on your rescources, so, if you have an older computer, or a slow internet connection, this is a much more practical solution to listening to online music, than Pandora or Last.fm.

Also, if you have Opera, then you can also add these online MP3 players onto your side bar, and play them on there as a page, and continue playing them while you are browsing the internet.

New computer.

Hey, guess what I found in the garage last night? an old laptop!  It is a Toshiba Satellite 1730, with a 700MHz processor, 192MB of RAM, and a 10GB HDD.  We got it from a relative that collects old computers, as an E-mail computer for the girls.  Unfortunately, the power cord got cut in two, I have no idea how.  Therfore, as any normal person would assume, it was useless, since they looked up the cord, and found it for $50, which Dad was not willing to pay for an old computer like that. However, I know where to get stuff cheap, and, after checking my sources, found that I could replace the cord for $30, including shipping.  Now, a computer with those specs might not seem like much use, but I have a purpose for it.  I enjoy blogging (obviously), and I enjoy taking notes during Bible Study, which we hold almost every day of the week, at 8:30 p.m, until 9:00.  But, my handwriting is sloppy, and if I want to look back at my notes, I automatically go to my computer, which they are not there, and I am not willing to type them in after every Bible Study.  Also, my notebook keeps getting lost, along with my bible.  So, I figured, that if I could replace the power cord, I could install a stripped-down version of Xubuntu, which I would run OpenOffice, and a bible program.  The same relative that originally gave it to us, however, might have a power cord that would work, and I have E-mailed him about it.  if he has one, I offered to pay him $10, for either shipping, or gas money to drop it off next time he is in town.  Also, if that works, I will spend the money I saved on that, in buying another 128MB peice of RAM, which I have found for $11.  After all that, only one issue remains: the battery.  This is an old machine, so I do not know how well the battery would work. However, all I need it to be able to do is last long enough for me to take it upstairs, anything besides that is a luxury.  In other words, I need the battery to last me a full 5 minutes, so I am not that concerned, the only way it would be a problem is if the battery is completely dead.

Worthless Without - 3&1/2

Today, I decided to browse Purevolume’s Christian Section for free Metal downloads. I tabbed all of the promising ones that were on the first page. I looked at several, and saw a download or, two, but they were not very heavy, and not my style. Then, I stumbled across a “Christian Screamo” band. Hmmm… does that sound a bit contradictory, or is it just me? Well, They had an entire album, plus two other songs up for download, so I decided to check them out, and see if there was one or two I liked. I started to listen to them, and decided that they were mis-labeled. They are not Screamo, they are MetalCore. As most heavy music fans know, they are not at all the same thing. Screamo is sort of punk-metal, while MetalCore (not to be confused with Melodic Metal) has slightly better playing, and has more aggressive vocals. I liked a bunch of their songs, and so I decided to download all available songs. This band is called Worthless Without.(Purevolume)(Myspace) Their lyrics do appear to be Christian, except for the fact that you cannot understand 70% of what they are saying. Overall, I would give this band 3 and a half stars, which is a mediocre rating.
Pros: They have good guitars, and fairly good vocals, for a “Screamo” band. They appear to be well-established, at least in Canada.
Cons: Mis-labeled as a “Screamo” band, they appear to be more of a MetalCore-style band. Their vocals are often really high-pitched, and the songs tend to go from punk, to pure metal, from one to the next.

Check them out, and download their album, if you like that type of music. Hey, it’s free. What do you have to lose?
Oh, and, don’t become too obsessed with them, they just broke up.

How would you like…

If you have ever visited my Music Blog, There is generally one thing you notice right off of the bat:  It’s… well… not.  With a post or two a month, it was not nearly what I had in mind when I created it.  I had originally planned on it being a blog dedicated to Metal Christian artists, with a description, and lyrics, and maybe a link to a free song that I found for that artist on The Free Christian Blog.  That is how it went, for a while.  Then, I got back into this blog, or, rather, this one.  When that happened, I stopped posting on my my music blog, posting only one post, since then.  I recently have decided that keeping it up, without posting anything, is not wise, and merely takes up Blogspot’s server space.  However, I still enjoy writing reviews on topics such as that, and I do not want to give that up.  Therefore, I am probably going to attempt to merge it with this one.  Another idea I have, is creating another WordPress blog, that deals with reviews, with this one being more news-related, and with regular posts, such as the Monday Funnies, and such.  Let me know what you think of it (please!).

In the meantime, I will post a few music reviews, and look at my blog stats, to see how often they are viewed, and what links are clicked, to see how good the idea is.   Of course, it would be a LOT easier, and more productive, it you commented.  *hint hint*

Also, as a side note, if/when I do this, I will not contain myself to Christian artists, but I will never review an artist in a positive manner that has bad moral/religious views, and/or uses frequent strong language, and I will always tell you if they are Christian or not, and how much language they use, if any.

Reviews

Remember that article I wrote a few days ago, about AVG? well, apparently a rather hot topic on WordPress is anti-virus.  My views have gone up incredibly, and it is mainly because of that post.  Therefore, since I know that, I will most likely be posting more review articles.

what do you think of that idea?  What type of subjects would you like reviewed?

comment.

Welcome to the new blog!

Well, okay, same blog. Just different URL/host.  I have imported all of my other posts onto this blog, obviously.  I also have made a title picture for my blog.  Yes, I realize that the title and description of the page are above it, and that does not look good, but I will fix it.  You like my new URL?  I thought that I should change it to something more geek/nerd related, as that is what my blog is about.  I got it off of Stargate Atlantis, from this one episode where you see Dr. McKay wearing a shirt saying “I’m with genius,” and an arrow pointing up.  I thought it was funny.  Plus, everyone knows that I am just as smart as McKay is!  haha.  My other favorite McKay quote was “Carter: ‘Go suck on a lemon!’”  (he’s deathly allergic to lemons).  Well, I guess I can’t just stop to change blogs, and take a week off of posting, so I will try to keep posting posts that do not have to do with the new blog.

On that note, I have had a wonderful day  today, especially considering that it is the last day before Spring Break.  The weather was the best I have seen all year, I got %100 on my math today, and finished my school a hour and a half early.  The girls are having a sleepover/private party (they are not sharing the candy :P) with someof their friends, while we are left to watch movies all by ourselves.  *sniff.* kinda makes you feel lonely, doesn’t it? No? oh, well.

Wonderfull Newness! Oh, how wonderfull!

Spring Break is coming up, and, a while after that, Summer Break. Therefore, I have determined that NOW is the excellent time to make my blog what I always wanted: a REAL blog. up until a couple of months ago, this was a place where I would come on once or so a week, and post something funny, or useless. I got it up and running recently, but that is all I did. What I want this blog to become, is a blog that, in my future career of Technology, will serve me well. ESPECIALLY if I decide to go into Technology News, which I am leaning towards. So, I am going to turn this into a real blog, with YOUR help. I am going to incorporate regular events into this blog, as in a Weekly post on a particular topic, or a monthly, or bi-monthly, or bi-weekly, etc. But to do this, I need to know what you want to know about. To accomplish this, I have created a poll at the bottom of the page that will remain there for a month. Please vote on what you want to be added to the blog, and please, please, come back and see how it is progressing, and provide feedback on the new features. On the sidebar, you will find a link to the post that I want you to comment on, and provide feedback. Thank You very much!

~Trey Edwards~

A New Beginning.

As you know, I have just passed the 200th post mark. And yet, in all that time, Almost no one has bothered to check my blog on a regular basis. Using several methods, I have determined that the reason for that is because all I post are either really long posts that no one wants to read, or I post small tidbits about what is going on in the family. Also, it is the lack of regular posts. I do tend to post sporadically. So… I am going to start anew! Next week is Spring Break, and I plan on spending some time then to work on some projects, which I am currently trying to think of ideas for. One thing I am thinking about is creating yet another blog, dedicated to geek news. But, that is only an idea, since I am already trying to maintain two blogs, one of which I really need to post something on. I am brainstorming in my spare time, trying to come up with ideas. I will soon post a poll, or multiple polls, asking for your opinion on these things. What I am going to institute, as of right now, is going to be called “The Weekly Funny,” in which I will post a bunch (not sure how many yet) of funny quotes/lines/pictures/short stories, etc. This will be posted every Monday. Starting Next Monday. And, no, this will not hold only techno-babble, I will post stuff that anyone can understand, and appreciate, along with a geek section (maybe). Please, provide input on all these issues, while I brainstorm over the next week and a half, trying to make my blog more… real. One of my objectives, one of the goals I am trying to accomplish with this, is, when I apply for a technology-oriented job, and they ask for examples of my work, I hope to be able to point them to this blog. This will also most likely involve changing the name AND URL of the blog, if I do not create an entirely new one. Also, I will soon be getting a new desk, which will be a more ergonomic one, which means I can type more efficient posts, instead of having to stop short because my arm hurts. Yes, I am being serious. Most of the posts on were only half as good as I wanted them to be, but I had to stop typing, because my arm/hands hurt because of my small desk, combined with a multimedia keyboard, large CRT monitor, speakers, mouse/mousepad, cupholder, and CD spool.

Note: next post on My Music Blog will be on Apocolyptica, not a Christian band, but a very unique one, without lyrics in any form. It is four cello players, with a drummer.