Updates...

I did it! I finally got the payloader battery all charged up and started the damn thing! I am happy about this and drove that sucker right in to the manure pile. It's nice to have that pile pushed back now.

On a whole different note, I picked up a Motorola Xoom Android tablet over the weekend. Darn nice piece of hardware though I'm not sure how it will fit in my daily work flow. After two days I am missing my laptop for some things and may go back to it. We'll see.

Mac's no longer safe!

For years Mac users have poked and prodded PC users about virus infections and how their Mac's are amazingly immune to the problem. A few years back I saw two Mac servers and a desktop get taken down by a nasty infection in our IT department so I knew it was just a matter of time.

Today the problem is getting worse as Macs take off in popularity, we find that Mac users are no different from PC users in the virus world.

* Support Reps told not to confirm Mac infections.

* AppleCare support rep says infections are getting worse.

It isn't ever a nice thing when your computer gets something it shouldn't and you lose control and data. Still after years of jeering from Mac users I can't help but let out a little "Tee Hee!"

Things that make you go wow...

Ubuntu Linux

So I updated my netbook today from 9.10 to 10.4 LTS. Daaaaamn it's running sweet! I'm going to buy 20 more CD's from them and give them out to people. Check out the Ubuntu link on my side bar for a peek.

Interesting article...

Apparently the man who co-invented the UNIX operating system and C programming language was not allowed to submit code at his job. Ken Thompson was working at Google to create the programming language Go.

This amusing tale can be found here.

For those that keep track of Linux things...

Specifically...

Work or not work?

Someone said to me yesterday that I spent a lot of time solving technical problems and must be tired.

Recently I finished a loan disbursement application for the financial aid office at the college I work at. It grabs all the students loan disbursement information, packages it in to PDF files, and mails the files to the students school email accounts.

There were technical bugs, but things worked out and I ended up replacing a system that was originally running on Cobol and doing line printer output with a nice neat form. Now that it's done the application is working and people are saving money on printing and postage costs. (5000 letters is a lot of stamps!)

I feel like I didn't do any work, I just had fun.

World of Goo

Physics and fun wrapped in to one! The goal is to get as many goo balls in to the pipe by shaping them in to various forms so they can reach the pipe! Think of it as Lemmings with physics. :)

World of Goo

Netbook Rambling

Last year I bought an Asus EEE 701 4G netbook. It had the small 7" screen and tiny keyboard but it was a dream come true for work. Low powered computer that just worked. I was so happy with the 4G I bought a second netbook a few months later. I got a shiny new EEE 1000 40G.

Well I started out using the Xandros Linux on the EEE's and it worked great but I wanted more. So I tried Windows XP for a short time but XP was such a bloated and slow mess I went back to Xandros. Then along came UbuntuEEE (Now EasyPeasy) and I was really happy what it did for my 40G. Finally Canonical came out with Ubuntu 9.04 netbook remix and it's the bees knees for netbook OS's.

So now what do i want in an upgrade? Well I imagine I won't bother upgrading for a long time. My 701 4G sits around doing nothing but my 1000 40G is chugging along great, still the day will come when it will need replaced so here's my list what I'm looking for now.

• Solid state drive.
• 2 gigs of ram
• 10" display that will handle 1024x768 natively.
• Processor isn't too big a deal. These are supposed to be low powered machines where heat isn't a problem and battery life goes on and on. Little faster wouldn't hurt so long as it's low powered.
  
• Battery life lasts a very long time. (Greater then 8 hours)
  
• The rest of it can basically be like the EEE 1000 40G.
• Support for Linux drivers from the manufacture or Ubuntu Netbook Remix preinstalled. :)
  

Now over time this will change somewhat I imagine, but that is what would make me buy a new netbook at this point.

What Bad Things Your PC Can Be Used For...

If you think because you don't do online banking or anything sensitive that a malicious computer user would not bother with you? Think again.

It's a good idea to keep your computer up to date with the latest operating system patches as well as any anti-virus updates you can get. The other thing is be careful where you surf or click.

Home Made Computer

It's an 8 bit home built computer that runs at 2-3Mhz. Check out the Big Mess O' Wires!

Computer Memory

A new memory technology is being worked on that could potentially store date for about a billion years while holding 10-100 gigabits of data.

Now you really have to worry about making sure your old drive is wiped clean before disposing of it. People may laugh at you up to a billion years from now when they find that not so flattering picture. :P

Day 3

.. for me and the conference has officially kicked off. The keynote speech was given by Maya Angelou and now I have visions of cloud computers with rainbows. I really enjoyed her speech. :)

Built his own laptop...

This guy built his own laptop computer, not just the computer, but the OS, file system, and everything. Check it out here.

OS Upgrades...

A little while ago I bought a second hard drive for my desktop computer. I decided to give the Ubuntu OS a try on that system, more specifically the Kubuntu derivative.

For the most part the experience has been wonderful when I booted over there. The operating system boots way faster then Microsoft's Windows Vista and just seems to make better use of my systems resources over all (IE: No disk thrashing/taking forever to load things). I only run one anti-virus on my Window drive and don't load very many things at all during startup. I did check Vista's MSCONFIG to be sure.

Out of the box with Windows you get an Operating System, Media Player, Web Browser, email client, and a basic paint tool and some other things. With Ubuntu I got all that plus a full office package, photoshop like paint program, and access to tons of games. Plus I also got access to Wine which lets me run some Windows programs in Linux w/out Windows.

There thats my Linux sales pitch, now for what happened to me last night. Yesterday the new version of Ubuntu came out (8.10 I believe). You can either download the CD, buy it, or request a free copy. Unlike Windows, I found a nifty feature that let me upgrade the OS directly over the internet.

So I started the upgrade process and by morning my Kubuntu 8.0.3 install turned in to a Kubuntu 8.10 install. Everything appears to be working, I found no compatability issues unlike with what I found when I went from XP to Vista. The operating system did its job and upgraded the necessary packages to keep my system performing without a hitch.

With the updated Kubuntu I got the newest version of KDE desktop. Oddly enough the new KDE desktop looks a lot like the new Windows 7.0 screenies I saw on some news sites. I noticed the system tray on the new Windows 7.0 screenies reminded me of my Linux desktop with how some of the icons looked Linux'y and were on a Vista like interface. The only difference is the Linux version doesn't make my system choke trying to load different things or search.

Maybe Microsoft will get their OS to the point where it does things without spinning drives like crazy and bugging users with the (C)ancel or (A)llow question all the time some day. :P