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.)

+6, -5, What’s the difference? Come on!

For all those of you (probably very few, actually) who always wondered why I was writing my posts 12-7 a.m., That was not actually the case. When choosing my location on the WordPress Settings, I am used to seeing cities and time zones associated with the UTC numbers, and they did not have them on the menu. Therefore, I chose what I thought was the correct one, UTC +6. Well, That was not it. It was UTC -5. I mean, COME ON! Can’t they use some sort of cookie to find out where I am? That is an 11 hour difference!

In other words, in the future you will see me posting my posts at a more reasonable time. Sorry for the confusion, there.

Evil never triumphs!

The Yahoo-Microsoft merger did not happen.  They never even got close.  Microsoft pulled it’s offer from the table, after months of silence from Yahoo. As a result, Yahoo just crashed.  With already low stocks, and declining revenue, Yahoo stock holders are threatening to punish Yahoo severely for not paying more attention to the offer, and the stock price has already dropped. Read it all here:

Of course, everyone knows what this means!  Google now has an opportunity to rise higher than before, taking out both companies.

Now if only they’d release Goobuntu to the public…

Still no respite from hell!

Charlie remains Windows-fied.  I have been having a heck of a lot of problems installing Linux on it, as it has no CD drive, no network boot capability, and no USB boot capability.  I have been working with a person on Ubuntu Forums to boot it off my USB drive, using something called syslinux, which basically boots it off of the USB device using Windows, instead of the BIOS.  I have run into problems with that, too.  However, I remain confident that this is the right option, and that we can get past the problems, and boot it with syslinux.  Here is the post where I am working on it.  Any help would be appreciated.  I refuse to remain Windows-fied, even if it is just an old laptop.