I saw this last night, but did not care to comment until I thought about it for a while. A 71 year old man decides to have a gender change operation. While I am a conservative, I am not appalled at this...that is until I read that the man is a substitute elementary school teacher. That, my compadres, is what makes me say, "Hmmmmmm". Sorry, most of those kids are just too young to handle that. Mind you that is my opinion and YMMV.
When I saw the pic, all I could think of was a man in drag. Then I thought, "71? Wow,what took that person so long? They are on the down side of life's mountain. If that is what he/she wanted, then maybe he/she should have started the process earlier? Weird.
On to the blessings. Bills have been getting more expensive, my rate of pay (and my wife's) has not, we have incurred more bills, lowered the interest rates on others, but the net result is that we were going to be short each month unless we paid just a tad over the minimum amount do on a couple of our loans. We normally pay $100 more than the minimum, but we had to stop that on the van payment. We just round up the payment to $400, instead of the $500 we were paying.
Yesterday, I looked at my earnings statement (online check stub ... we do not get hard copies unless we print them up ourselves. It actually saves our company a chunk of change) and noticed it was 5% higher than normal. I investigated and come to find out that since I changed departments, I now qualify for "on call" pay. I am not sure if that is going to show up on every check or just on the week that I could/should be on call, but it is money I did not count on and I am praising God for the gift. At least I can get my oil leak fixed.
The other blessing has to do with our electric bill. At this time of the year, our bill goes down due to the increase in gas for heat and the decrease in A/C usage. We had signed on with an electric company a little over 3 years ago that locked us in at a very sweat rate (7.9 cents per kwh) in return for a 3 year contract. The rate was the same as the cheapest tiered rate TXU (the Texas regular gas and electric company), but to get that rate, you had to use A LOT of electricity, which we normally do not. Long story short, our contract was up in January and we just got our first bill with the new rate. They are still charging us the old rate! That rate (7.9 cents per kwh) is just about HALF of what TXU charges. So my bill was only $40 dollars instead of the $80 I was expecting. If that can hold for a while, we may be able to get out of debt! Thank you God!
I have a theory on why this has happened. 1-2 months before our contract expired, we got a letter in the mail telling us what our new contract rate was for a 1-2 year commitment. There was a typo on it (I assume) and when my wife called about it, the CCR told her that the best rate she could offer us was 15 cents per kwh (1 cent cheaper than TXU's lowest tiered rate...just like 3 years ago). My wife told her that we had an offer for 7.9 cents per kwh and while she knew that was most likely a misprint, she had hoped for a compromise. The CCR at Direct Energy told my wife that she was sorry, but their rates were cheaper than TXU and she could do no better. We knew we had no choice, so we signed a 1 year contract at 15 cents/kwh. My theory is that the rate did not change because the system has a date/rate wrong somewhere and the letter we received was sent because of that. We shall see.
I am adjusting to a Linux life. I have been researching and found out the eye candy I was playing with was a hack, so to speak that was buggy and is now not really being supported. Newer and better hacks are being coded and are much more stable. The biggest issue with the xcompmgr and my Linux install was the desktop system. I prefer Gnome and this hack was not really compatible with Gnome. The newer one is. I will wait. In the mean time, it is possible to use Kwin and Gnome together to overcome the old hacks issues and get neat Vista-ish effects without the crash. You have to give up the ability to change themes, but it is stable, or so I have heard. I guess I just got too interested in eye candy. The performance I have now is just fine. I can wait until the newer hacks are done.
My wife an I left the house at 7:30, getting me to work after 8 AM. I was not mad, but I would really like to miss as much traffic as possible. When we leave at 7:30 AM from home and leave the offices at 8:00 AM, we hit the bulk of the traffic and neither me nor my wife like that...oh well.
I called my BiC, Mickey* last night to see how he was adjusting to his new house. After a long day at work on oil / gas rigs, he is pretty tired when he gets home. He had ordered naked DSL for his house but it was not working Saturday as expected. He called and they did not have the service turned on yet for him. After a few minutes, it was active. He then grabbed his router and started to configure it but networking is not his strongest area. He can troubleshoot PC's pretty well, but he does not like to play with the networking. I tried to walk him through the setup, but he was tired and a tad cranky and to be honest, he did not need to be messing with that ...he needed his rest. I told him I had a 50' CAT 5 cable he could have if he wanted to swing by and pick it up on his way to or from work. I told him I could come up Saturday if he wanted me to and we could fix his issues.
He is one guy I like to help. No pretenses, what you see is what you get.
*Not his real name
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Workaholic and Maybe I Expect Too Much Sometimes
My wife...I love her so much, but she is such a workaholic around the house. Maybe not so much a workaholic as much as a perfectionist. Yesterday she did not work (She works Tuesdays and Thursdays) but she had plans to clean a bit and do a few loads of laundry. Knowing my wife as I do, I told her that I wanted her to pace herself and set her goals low. I wanted her to have all she wanted to do finished by 4 PM. I only said 4 because she insisted on cooking dinner and 1 hour would be enough for her to prepare it.
I called her at 4 PM or so to check up on he and she told me she was "almost finished". I began to panic but I did not let it show. She asked me to stop at the store on the way home to get a few things. I told her I would but I was not very hungry (thanx to a last minute birthday feast at work). She said that was ok...she could skip cooking dinner because she was exhausted.
I got home and heard the vacuum cleaner running in our bedroom. I took of my shoes and walked in and saw our bedroom complete disassembled. The mattress and box springs were off the frame and leaning against the wall, blocking our closet door. We have a queen sized bed and for my wife to do this was a huge feat.
I come to find out that my wife in the 9 hours I was gone had completed 3 loads of clothes, went to the gym for an hour, dissected our bedroom, cleaned every surface / item in that room (knick knacks, corners, etc...EVERYTHING), took a 45 minute nap, and did an hours work of administrivia for church. She did this PLUS did the normal dog routine (brush teeth, meds, short walk), sorted the mail, and made a few phone calls. I was very upset because this is what my wife does. She works herself to death.
I finally got her to finish last night just as "24" was coming on. We were both in bed by 10 PM. Of course we both got up at 5 AM, it is now 7:20 and she is still not ready for work (although she is very close). We car pool on Tuesdays and Thursdays to save money and it has helped. I am spending 1/2 the money on gas for the Dakota than I was 6-8 months ago.
I am going to add another post today about a couple of blessings we received. They may be short lived, but I am going to be thankful to all mighty God for them nonetheless.
I called her at 4 PM or so to check up on he and she told me she was "almost finished". I began to panic but I did not let it show. She asked me to stop at the store on the way home to get a few things. I told her I would but I was not very hungry (thanx to a last minute birthday feast at work). She said that was ok...she could skip cooking dinner because she was exhausted.
I got home and heard the vacuum cleaner running in our bedroom. I took of my shoes and walked in and saw our bedroom complete disassembled. The mattress and box springs were off the frame and leaning against the wall, blocking our closet door. We have a queen sized bed and for my wife to do this was a huge feat.
I come to find out that my wife in the 9 hours I was gone had completed 3 loads of clothes, went to the gym for an hour, dissected our bedroom, cleaned every surface / item in that room (knick knacks, corners, etc...EVERYTHING), took a 45 minute nap, and did an hours work of administrivia for church. She did this PLUS did the normal dog routine (brush teeth, meds, short walk), sorted the mail, and made a few phone calls. I was very upset because this is what my wife does. She works herself to death.
I finally got her to finish last night just as "24" was coming on. We were both in bed by 10 PM. Of course we both got up at 5 AM, it is now 7:20 and she is still not ready for work (although she is very close). We car pool on Tuesdays and Thursdays to save money and it has helped. I am spending 1/2 the money on gas for the Dakota than I was 6-8 months ago.
I am going to add another post today about a couple of blessings we received. They may be short lived, but I am going to be thankful to all mighty God for them nonetheless.
Monday, February 27, 2006
From Cienna2000 via Dakboy...
Movie Meme: "Supposedly if you've seen over 70 you have no life. Number the ones you've seen."
Score at the bottom.
() Rocky Horror Picture Show
(*) Grease
(*) Pirates of the Caribbean
() Boondock Saints
() The Mexican
() Fight Club
() Starsky and Hutch
(*) Neverending Story
(*) Blazing Saddles
(*) Airplane!
Total: 5
(*) The Princess Bride
(*) Young Frankenstein
() Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
() Napoleon Dynamite
() Saw
() White Noise
() White Oleander
() Anger Management
() 50 First Dates
() Jason X
Total: 7
() Scream
() Scream 2
() Scream 3
() Scary Movie
() Scary Movie 2
() Scary Movie 3
() American Pie
() American Pie 2
() American Wedding
(*) Harry Potter
Total: 8
() Harry Potter 2
() Harry Potter 3
() Harry Potter 4
() Resident Evil I
() Resident Evil 2
() The Wedding Singer
() Little Black Book
(*) The Village
() Donnie Darko
(*) Lilo & Stitch
Total: 10
() Finding Nemo
() Finding Neverland
() 13 Ghosts
(*) Signs
() The Grinch
() Texas Chainsaw Massacre
() White Chicks
() Butterfly Effect
() 13 Going on 30
() I, Robot
Total: 11
() Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
(*) Universal Soldier
() Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
() Along Came Polly
(*) Deep Impact
(*) Kingpin
() Never Been Kissed
() Meet The Parents
() Meet the Fockers
() Eight Crazy Nights
Total: 14
() Cinderella Story
() The Terminal
() The Lizzie McGuire Movie
() Passport to Paris
() Dumb & Dumber
() Dumb & Dumberer
() Final Destination
() Final Destination 2
(*) Halloween
() The Ring
Total: 15
() The Ring 2
() Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
() Practical Magic
() Chicago
() Ghost Ship
() From Hell
(*) Hellboy
() Secret Window
() I Am Sam
() The Whole Nine Yards
Total: 16
() The Day After Tomorrow
(*) Child's Play
() Bride of Chucky
() Ten Things I Hate About You
() Just Married
() Gothika
(*) Nightmare on Elm Street
(*) Sixteen Candles
() Coach Carter
() Bad Boys
Total: 19
() Bad Boys 2
() Joy Ride
(*) Se7en
() Ocean's Eleven
() Ocean's Twelve
(*) Bourne Identity
() Lone Star
() Bedazzled
(*) Predator I
(*) Predator II
Total: 24
(*) Independence Day
(*) Cujo
() A Bronx Tale
() Darkness Falls
(*) Christine
(*) ET
(*) Children of the Corn
() My Boss' daughter
() Frailty
Total: 29
() Best Men
() How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
() She's All That
() Calendar Girls
() Sideways
() Mars Attacks!
() Event Horizon
() Ever After
(*) Forrest Gump
(*) Big Trouble in Little China
Total: 31
(*) X-Men
(*) X-2
() Jeepers Creepers
() Jeepers Creepers 2
() Catch Me If You Can
() The Others
(*) Freaky Friday (the original Disney version)
(*) Reign of Fire
() Cruel Intentions
() The Hot Chick
Total: 35
() Swimfan
() Miracle
() Old School
() The Notebook
() K-Pax
(*) Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
(*) Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
(*) Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
() A Walk to Remember
() Boogeyman
Total: 38
() Hitch
() The Fifth Element
(*) Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace
(*) Star Wars Episode II Attack of The Clones
(*) Star Wars Episode III Revenge of The Sith
(*) Star Wars Episode IV A New HopE
(*) Star Wars Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
(*) Star Wars Episode VI Return of The Jedi...
() Troop Beverly Hills
() Swimming with Sharks
Total: 44
(*) Air Force One
() For Richer or Poorer
() Trainspotting
() People Under the Stairs
() Blue Velvet
(*) Sound of Music
(*) Parent Trap 1 (old)
() Parent Trap 2 (new)
(*) The Burbs
(*) The Terminator
Total: 49
() Empire Records
() SLC Punk
() Meet Joe Black
() Nightmare Before Christmas
(*) The Silence of the Lambs
() Red Dragon
(*) Sleepy Hollow
() I Heart Huckabees
() 24 Hour Party People
() Blood In Blood Out
() The Virgin Suicides
Total 51
Score at the bottom.
() Rocky Horror Picture Show
(*) Grease
(*) Pirates of the Caribbean
() Boondock Saints
() The Mexican
() Fight Club
() Starsky and Hutch
(*) Neverending Story
(*) Blazing Saddles
(*) Airplane!
Total: 5
(*) The Princess Bride
(*) Young Frankenstein
() Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
() Napoleon Dynamite
() Saw
() White Noise
() White Oleander
() Anger Management
() 50 First Dates
() Jason X
Total: 7
() Scream
() Scream 2
() Scream 3
() Scary Movie
() Scary Movie 2
() Scary Movie 3
() American Pie
() American Pie 2
() American Wedding
(*) Harry Potter
Total: 8
() Harry Potter 2
() Harry Potter 3
() Harry Potter 4
() Resident Evil I
() Resident Evil 2
() The Wedding Singer
() Little Black Book
(*) The Village
() Donnie Darko
(*) Lilo & Stitch
Total: 10
() Finding Nemo
() Finding Neverland
() 13 Ghosts
(*) Signs
() The Grinch
() Texas Chainsaw Massacre
() White Chicks
() Butterfly Effect
() 13 Going on 30
() I, Robot
Total: 11
() Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
(*) Universal Soldier
() Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
() Along Came Polly
(*) Deep Impact
(*) Kingpin
() Never Been Kissed
() Meet The Parents
() Meet the Fockers
() Eight Crazy Nights
Total: 14
() Cinderella Story
() The Terminal
() The Lizzie McGuire Movie
() Passport to Paris
() Dumb & Dumber
() Dumb & Dumberer
() Final Destination
() Final Destination 2
(*) Halloween
() The Ring
Total: 15
() The Ring 2
() Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle
() Practical Magic
() Chicago
() Ghost Ship
() From Hell
(*) Hellboy
() Secret Window
() I Am Sam
() The Whole Nine Yards
Total: 16
() The Day After Tomorrow
(*) Child's Play
() Bride of Chucky
() Ten Things I Hate About You
() Just Married
() Gothika
(*) Nightmare on Elm Street
(*) Sixteen Candles
() Coach Carter
() Bad Boys
Total: 19
() Bad Boys 2
() Joy Ride
(*) Se7en
() Ocean's Eleven
() Ocean's Twelve
(*) Bourne Identity
() Lone Star
() Bedazzled
(*) Predator I
(*) Predator II
Total: 24
(*) Independence Day
(*) Cujo
() A Bronx Tale
() Darkness Falls
(*) Christine
(*) ET
(*) Children of the Corn
() My Boss' daughter
() Frailty
Total: 29
() Best Men
() How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
() She's All That
() Calendar Girls
() Sideways
() Mars Attacks!
() Event Horizon
() Ever After
(*) Forrest Gump
(*) Big Trouble in Little China
Total: 31
(*) X-Men
(*) X-2
() Jeepers Creepers
() Jeepers Creepers 2
() Catch Me If You Can
() The Others
(*) Freaky Friday (the original Disney version)
(*) Reign of Fire
() Cruel Intentions
() The Hot Chick
Total: 35
() Swimfan
() Miracle
() Old School
() The Notebook
() K-Pax
(*) Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
(*) Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
(*) Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
() A Walk to Remember
() Boogeyman
Total: 38
() Hitch
() The Fifth Element
(*) Star Wars Episode I The Phantom Menace
(*) Star Wars Episode II Attack of The Clones
(*) Star Wars Episode III Revenge of The Sith
(*) Star Wars Episode IV A New HopE
(*) Star Wars Episode V The Empire Strikes Back
(*) Star Wars Episode VI Return of The Jedi...
() Troop Beverly Hills
() Swimming with Sharks
Total: 44
(*) Air Force One
() For Richer or Poorer
() Trainspotting
() People Under the Stairs
() Blue Velvet
(*) Sound of Music
(*) Parent Trap 1 (old)
() Parent Trap 2 (new)
(*) The Burbs
(*) The Terminator
Total: 49
() Empire Records
() SLC Punk
() Meet Joe Black
() Nightmare Before Christmas
(*) The Silence of the Lambs
() Red Dragon
(*) Sleepy Hollow
() I Heart Huckabees
() 24 Hour Party People
() Blood In Blood Out
() The Virgin Suicides
Total 51
Suuuuurrreee.
Microsoft states that their new operating system, "Vista" will be in 6 different varieties:
"We're really trying to make sure we have the right set of offerings for different customers," said Barry Goffe, a director in Microsoft's Windows client unit. I read that as, "We want to maximize our profit and earlier business models did not do that."
Linkage here, courtesy of C|Net.
Sigh. People will want the new OS, even Linux geeks, just for the eye candy, however it will most likely only run on the newer (within the last year or so) hardware. I am sure my video card (Nvidia GeForce 5600 FX) will not allow me to have all the bells and whistles in Vista and it is a middle of the road gaming card.
From the article:
How about make the operating system MODULAR, like Linux? Add what you want, remove what you don't. That is what I did at my house. My little box (the 400 mhz Celeron) has been stripped of all the multimedia stuff and runs only a minimal GUI and server operations (FTP, file, print, SSH, etc). The big machine (3 ghz Pentium) has no servers running and all the multimedia modules loaded. Two different machines, same OS, two different uses.
Oh well, it looks like I am Microsoft bashing again. Sorry.
"We're really trying to make sure we have the right set of offerings for different customers," said Barry Goffe, a director in Microsoft's Windows client unit. I read that as, "We want to maximize our profit and earlier business models did not do that."
Linkage here, courtesy of C|Net.
Sigh. People will want the new OS, even Linux geeks, just for the eye candy, however it will most likely only run on the newer (within the last year or so) hardware. I am sure my video card (Nvidia GeForce 5600 FX) will not allow me to have all the bells and whistles in Vista and it is a middle of the road gaming card.
From the article:
With Windows XP, Goffe said, people "really have to compromise."
"Either I get all the great media experience or I get all of the mobility features," he said. "What if I want a great home experience and a great business experience?How about make the operating system MODULAR, like Linux? Add what you want, remove what you don't. That is what I did at my house. My little box (the 400 mhz Celeron) has been stripped of all the multimedia stuff and runs only a minimal GUI and server operations (FTP, file, print, SSH, etc). The big machine (3 ghz Pentium) has no servers running and all the multimedia modules loaded. Two different machines, same OS, two different uses.
Oh well, it looks like I am Microsoft bashing again. Sorry.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Sunday Evening -- Coda
The weekend is all but over. It has been a full and busy weekend and I am tired. Nonetheless, I am not really looking forward to work. My new project (plus my old obligations) is not something I am going to enjoy. I will however pray that God blesses me with knowledge, patience, perseverance, and wisdom for the upcoming task.
Friday I attended the wedding shower for a couple we know from church. It was small, low key and quaint. I chatted and visited with a few and we went home. My back bothered me some but I think that the Feldene I have been taking has had some effect. God appears to be answering prayers.
Saturday my wife dropped me off at church for the men's breakfast. I fellowshipped with several men as well as discussed some business. The man who I was mentoring in 1 to 1 Discipling wanted to buy my truck...in cash but I had to turn him down. We still are paying off the van and cannot afford to go to one vehicle with the both of us working.
After the breakfast, we helped Mickey and Mary* move into their new home 30 minutes north of us. While it has very few frills, it will make a great home for them. I am so happy that they are finally out of the townhouse. They were miserable there! The move went rather well with about 12 people showing up to assist. It took 2 trips and about 6 hours, but we got it all done. I was not allowed to lift much, but I did help hook up the TV, DVD/VCR, and the satellite dish. At least I could do something. Mickey is going to give me some old computer equipment when he gets it all sorted out. After my wife and I got home she wanted to check her e-mail, so I watched Battlestar Galactica. There are only 2 more episodes this season. I think it is going to end in style.
Wife wife soon went to bed and I took the next 34 hours trying to figure out where I screwed up our checkbook. There was a $200 difference between what I thought we had and what the bank was reporting. The bank was right. I found two, $100 errors I had made. Doh!
Sunday was the usual church routine with our newest members of the praise and worship band performing. They did a great job and played one of my favorite songs, "Agnus Dei". Third Day does a version that is inspiring. While I was listening to the pre-worship music, I noticed a couple who live in our neighborhood had shown up. I invited them to sit with us and we chatted. June* had been there before but her husband, Chaz* had not. They seemed to enjoy themselves. After service my wife invited one of her older friends to lunch with us. At first I thought it was going to be a disaster. The line was long, the wait for the food was longer, and Darlene's* sandwich was soggy. My only guess was they made the sandwich and had to wait on our baked potatoes. Darlene did not seem to mind much, but I still felt bad.
After lunch I went to the church to help install some PC's in the preschool rooms. There were only three but the Bill* wanted the help, so I offered. It did not take long, but the machines were not great. They were old Pentiums (133, 450, and 733 mhz) donated from friends and church members. I thought my 400 mhz Celeron server was ancient, but it is a rocket compared to one of those!
I got home and my wife was getting ready to go walk the dogs at the dog park, so I watched the play by play of the UNC-Maryland game (GO HEELS!) then the movie, "A History of Violence". It had potential, but it was a tad too twisted for me. After the movie was over my wife came home and I unload the groceries out of the van and had a quick simple dinner of cheese and crackers. I was not very hungry. With all the regular duties out of the way, my wife decided to watch TV and I watched a couple of episodes of Babylon 5. Season two is pretty good so far.
The Linux box (with new Nvidia drivers) seems to be running flawlessly. Several hours on and playing full screen video has not caused X to crash at all. Hoo-ah!
Well, I am going to get some shut eye. While we did not do much around here this weekend, I am tired nonetheless.
* Not their real names.
Friday I attended the wedding shower for a couple we know from church. It was small, low key and quaint. I chatted and visited with a few and we went home. My back bothered me some but I think that the Feldene I have been taking has had some effect. God appears to be answering prayers.
Saturday my wife dropped me off at church for the men's breakfast. I fellowshipped with several men as well as discussed some business. The man who I was mentoring in 1 to 1 Discipling wanted to buy my truck...in cash but I had to turn him down. We still are paying off the van and cannot afford to go to one vehicle with the both of us working.
After the breakfast, we helped Mickey and Mary* move into their new home 30 minutes north of us. While it has very few frills, it will make a great home for them. I am so happy that they are finally out of the townhouse. They were miserable there! The move went rather well with about 12 people showing up to assist. It took 2 trips and about 6 hours, but we got it all done. I was not allowed to lift much, but I did help hook up the TV, DVD/VCR, and the satellite dish. At least I could do something. Mickey is going to give me some old computer equipment when he gets it all sorted out. After my wife and I got home she wanted to check her e-mail, so I watched Battlestar Galactica. There are only 2 more episodes this season. I think it is going to end in style.
Wife wife soon went to bed and I took the next 34 hours trying to figure out where I screwed up our checkbook. There was a $200 difference between what I thought we had and what the bank was reporting. The bank was right. I found two, $100 errors I had made. Doh!
Sunday was the usual church routine with our newest members of the praise and worship band performing. They did a great job and played one of my favorite songs, "Agnus Dei". Third Day does a version that is inspiring. While I was listening to the pre-worship music, I noticed a couple who live in our neighborhood had shown up. I invited them to sit with us and we chatted. June* had been there before but her husband, Chaz* had not. They seemed to enjoy themselves. After service my wife invited one of her older friends to lunch with us. At first I thought it was going to be a disaster. The line was long, the wait for the food was longer, and Darlene's* sandwich was soggy. My only guess was they made the sandwich and had to wait on our baked potatoes. Darlene did not seem to mind much, but I still felt bad.
After lunch I went to the church to help install some PC's in the preschool rooms. There were only three but the Bill* wanted the help, so I offered. It did not take long, but the machines were not great. They were old Pentiums (133, 450, and 733 mhz) donated from friends and church members. I thought my 400 mhz Celeron server was ancient, but it is a rocket compared to one of those!
I got home and my wife was getting ready to go walk the dogs at the dog park, so I watched the play by play of the UNC-Maryland game (GO HEELS!) then the movie, "A History of Violence". It had potential, but it was a tad too twisted for me. After the movie was over my wife came home and I unload the groceries out of the van and had a quick simple dinner of cheese and crackers. I was not very hungry. With all the regular duties out of the way, my wife decided to watch TV and I watched a couple of episodes of Babylon 5. Season two is pretty good so far.
The Linux box (with new Nvidia drivers) seems to be running flawlessly. Several hours on and playing full screen video has not caused X to crash at all. Hoo-ah!
Well, I am going to get some shut eye. While we did not do much around here this weekend, I am tired nonetheless.
* Not their real names.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Where as I FINALLY Get to See My Son and it is so Darn Hard to Configure Video Drivers in Linux
I got a call from my son last night about 6:30 or so. He had almost finished working on his money pit (AKA as his 1995 Mazda) and wanted to take a break to come over and chat for a while. He brought us up to date on his time table and what has been keeping him busy. He graduated high school early, so he has a lot of free time to work on his car. He does not have much money, but that is a fact of life. Every time he fixes something, he finds more things broken. Good news is that when he is done, he will have a like new (mechanically) car.
He finally got a phone, but he did not get the rate he expected because he has not completed AIT (which he hopes to attend in a few weeks). He has a pre-paid phone which is .15/minute so needless to say he does not use it much.
After AIT, he will get his enlistment bonus (the first half) which he plans on using to live on once he starts UTI in Houston in the late summer. Once all that goes into effect, he will be in school about a year, then he will move back to this area and see what he wants to do. He does not want to stay in the Houston area after he finishes UTI. Me might volunteer for a peace keeping mission overseas someplace, just to get some travel and "real world" experience. I will add that to the list of things I pray for concerning him :-) .
Our son has a German competition tomorrow in Austin as one of his last official duties for school. Not sure how he will fair, but he may do well. He placed 2nd in the region last year and 4th in the state overall. Not bad for a kid who does not like school. Part of the competition will be spoken word and the other part will be dance. Not sure if he is doing both or not. I have not heard him say he had been to dance practice in months, but we never know exactly what he is up to.
Before he left, my wife made him a care package and I gave him an old laptop I had. It did not have a battery or a floppy drive, but it had a bootable DVD player, power cord and a travel (DC) adapter for vehicle use. That should help. I Had to refrain from hanging all over him (I really miss him), so I sort of half paid attention to him and half worked on my Linux box.
He stayed about an hour and he drove off in his roommates truck. I will not see him again for at least 3 days. Before last night, it had been almost a month since I saw him last. I guess I should not be surprised. I was about the same way when I was 18. I lived at home but I was out of the house by 5 AM and did not come back until 11 or midnight. I saw my parents very infrequently. I was not very smart then.
On to my technical rant...
I have been tweaking my Linux box with eye candy for a week or so. I read a very interesting "how-to" on giving Linux the same type of effects that Windows Vista will have. I figured I could try them out. I downloaded, compiled, and installed the "latest" drivers (as recommended and btw was a CHORE). I then set all the configuration in the xorg.conf as instructed and restarted X. Rut-Roh! Upon reboot and just when X was going to start, the screen blinked and I got a half black / half white screen. I waited a minute or two and rebooted into recovery mode (no graphics, console only) and edited my xorg.conf file, one item at a time until X booted properly. I managed to get X to run, so I had graphics. I then tried to run xcompmgr ( a composite mgr to allow the Vista-ish effects) and the machine CRAWLED. Upon research, this was caused because the PC processor (not the video card processor) was doing all the work and that is not good. So I turned off the neat effects and now X works. My job will be to figure out if there are other settings that will allow me to use the effects or if I need to drop back into another version of the driver. All this because I want the card to do as much work as I can get it to do. It is a good mid-level card (Nvidia 5600 w/256 megs of RAM) and it should be able to handle the chore. The drivers that have been compiled specifically for my distro of Linux (Ubuntu) worked, but it hung on shutdown. That was not fun. There was an app that I found that allowed me to turn the effects on and off before I shut down, but I was afraid I would forget. I guess I could have scripted it, but I wanted it to "just work". Feh. I know I could post on a message board and get an answer (most likely) but my pride is kicking in and I want to figure this out. Why must Linux video drivers be so hard to work with?
He finally got a phone, but he did not get the rate he expected because he has not completed AIT (which he hopes to attend in a few weeks). He has a pre-paid phone which is .15/minute so needless to say he does not use it much.
After AIT, he will get his enlistment bonus (the first half) which he plans on using to live on once he starts UTI in Houston in the late summer. Once all that goes into effect, he will be in school about a year, then he will move back to this area and see what he wants to do. He does not want to stay in the Houston area after he finishes UTI. Me might volunteer for a peace keeping mission overseas someplace, just to get some travel and "real world" experience. I will add that to the list of things I pray for concerning him :-) .
Our son has a German competition tomorrow in Austin as one of his last official duties for school. Not sure how he will fair, but he may do well. He placed 2nd in the region last year and 4th in the state overall. Not bad for a kid who does not like school. Part of the competition will be spoken word and the other part will be dance. Not sure if he is doing both or not. I have not heard him say he had been to dance practice in months, but we never know exactly what he is up to.
Before he left, my wife made him a care package and I gave him an old laptop I had. It did not have a battery or a floppy drive, but it had a bootable DVD player, power cord and a travel (DC) adapter for vehicle use. That should help. I Had to refrain from hanging all over him (I really miss him), so I sort of half paid attention to him and half worked on my Linux box.
He stayed about an hour and he drove off in his roommates truck. I will not see him again for at least 3 days. Before last night, it had been almost a month since I saw him last. I guess I should not be surprised. I was about the same way when I was 18. I lived at home but I was out of the house by 5 AM and did not come back until 11 or midnight. I saw my parents very infrequently. I was not very smart then.
On to my technical rant...
I have been tweaking my Linux box with eye candy for a week or so. I read a very interesting "how-to" on giving Linux the same type of effects that Windows Vista will have. I figured I could try them out. I downloaded, compiled, and installed the "latest" drivers (as recommended and btw was a CHORE). I then set all the configuration in the xorg.conf as instructed and restarted X. Rut-Roh! Upon reboot and just when X was going to start, the screen blinked and I got a half black / half white screen. I waited a minute or two and rebooted into recovery mode (no graphics, console only) and edited my xorg.conf file, one item at a time until X booted properly. I managed to get X to run, so I had graphics. I then tried to run xcompmgr ( a composite mgr to allow the Vista-ish effects) and the machine CRAWLED. Upon research, this was caused because the PC processor (not the video card processor) was doing all the work and that is not good. So I turned off the neat effects and now X works. My job will be to figure out if there are other settings that will allow me to use the effects or if I need to drop back into another version of the driver. All this because I want the card to do as much work as I can get it to do. It is a good mid-level card (Nvidia 5600 w/256 megs of RAM) and it should be able to handle the chore. The drivers that have been compiled specifically for my distro of Linux (Ubuntu) worked, but it hung on shutdown. That was not fun. There was an app that I found that allowed me to turn the effects on and off before I shut down, but I was afraid I would forget. I guess I could have scripted it, but I wanted it to "just work". Feh. I know I could post on a message board and get an answer (most likely) but my pride is kicking in and I want to figure this out. Why must Linux video drivers be so hard to work with?
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Ouch, Dogs, and Another Busy Weekend
This is short week since my company had Monday off as a holiday (Presidents Day) and I am thankful since I have a busy weekend coming up:
Friday - Wedding shower for a couple from our church. They were married a few weeks ago and wanted the shower after the wedding since they were very busy until now.
Clean the house (I might be able to do some tonight)
Saturday - Men's breakfast at church.
Help our friends move into their new house.
Sunday - Church and some rest (we do not do work on the Sabbath).
Mickey* said he had some PC parts he would let me have once we find them and sort them out. I would like to build a better server at some point, but I am not sure when that is going to happen. While 400 mhz and 512 megs RAM is "okay", it bogs down when hammered. I really would like to see a 1.1 gig with 512 RAM if I can find a way to get it at low or no cost.
I went home last night with a sharp pain in my back, just right of the incision. It hurts when I bend, so I have to squat to do everything. I was in pain during care group and I hurt the entire time I was walking the dogs. Today is only slightly better. I took Tylenol but it wore off already and I do not have any more here at work. When I get home, Vicodin here I come.
Speaking of dogs, my largest (but youngest at 6 years old) has hip problems and the vet suggested putting her on a new food made for large breed dogs with hip problems. It is made by Purina and costs ... $60 for a large bag (40-50 lbs?), twice the price of her old vet food. That bag will last about 2 months. She also is on hip meds that run about $15 a month. I know that sounds like small potatoes, but couple that with an oil leak from my oil pan in my truck and the fact our electricity bill will double (and our natural gas bill will go up 50%), we really are in a pinch. Not to mention that my wife has to start taking meds for her osteopena and I am not sure how much that will cost per month.
I get so overwhelmed when I do my best to help trim expenses (I do not go out for lunch but maybe once a month and that is only $5-6, cut down the cable bill to the minimum, got rid of a few frivolous expenses, moved debt from high interest to low/no interest credit cards, reuse grocery bags, carpool, cut down on dining out, etc,) and I see our monthly bills get larger and larger. I feel that I am in a hole, trying to climb out and the sides are crumbling in. The cost of living has gone up greater than my pay has :-) . I did increase my pay when I removed my son from our health insurance. That saved me $50 a month.
At least I will be able to make a little money (God willing) this summer when I start cutting grass. It will not be much, but it will help. Maybe I can get a paying gig or two doing PC upgrades / repairs. I have done some freebies in the past (and received some reward in barter) and they went well. The problem is that the people who need the help the most cannot afford to pay or expect the help free. I have a big heart so I usually give in. I am sure that is good for something.
Friday - Wedding shower for a couple from our church. They were married a few weeks ago and wanted the shower after the wedding since they were very busy until now.
Clean the house (I might be able to do some tonight)
Saturday - Men's breakfast at church.
Help our friends move into their new house.
Sunday - Church and some rest (we do not do work on the Sabbath).
Mickey* said he had some PC parts he would let me have once we find them and sort them out. I would like to build a better server at some point, but I am not sure when that is going to happen. While 400 mhz and 512 megs RAM is "okay", it bogs down when hammered. I really would like to see a 1.1 gig with 512 RAM if I can find a way to get it at low or no cost.
I went home last night with a sharp pain in my back, just right of the incision. It hurts when I bend, so I have to squat to do everything. I was in pain during care group and I hurt the entire time I was walking the dogs. Today is only slightly better. I took Tylenol but it wore off already and I do not have any more here at work. When I get home, Vicodin here I come.
Speaking of dogs, my largest (but youngest at 6 years old) has hip problems and the vet suggested putting her on a new food made for large breed dogs with hip problems. It is made by Purina and costs ... $60 for a large bag (40-50 lbs?), twice the price of her old vet food. That bag will last about 2 months. She also is on hip meds that run about $15 a month. I know that sounds like small potatoes, but couple that with an oil leak from my oil pan in my truck and the fact our electricity bill will double (and our natural gas bill will go up 50%), we really are in a pinch. Not to mention that my wife has to start taking meds for her osteopena and I am not sure how much that will cost per month.
I get so overwhelmed when I do my best to help trim expenses (I do not go out for lunch but maybe once a month and that is only $5-6, cut down the cable bill to the minimum, got rid of a few frivolous expenses, moved debt from high interest to low/no interest credit cards, reuse grocery bags, carpool, cut down on dining out, etc,) and I see our monthly bills get larger and larger. I feel that I am in a hole, trying to climb out and the sides are crumbling in. The cost of living has gone up greater than my pay has :-) . I did increase my pay when I removed my son from our health insurance. That saved me $50 a month.
At least I will be able to make a little money (God willing) this summer when I start cutting grass. It will not be much, but it will help. Maybe I can get a paying gig or two doing PC upgrades / repairs. I have done some freebies in the past (and received some reward in barter) and they went well. The problem is that the people who need the help the most cannot afford to pay or expect the help free. I have a big heart so I usually give in. I am sure that is good for something.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Gift From My Son
My son e-mailed me some Jack Bauer-isms last night...
* If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and he had a gun with 2 bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.
* If you wake up in the morning, it's because Jack Bauer spared your life.
* Upon hearing that he was played by Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Bauer killed Sutherland. Jack Bauer gets played by no man.
* If it tastes like chicken, looks like chicken, and feels like chicken, but Jack Bauer says its beef. Then it's definitely beef.
* Superman wears Jack Bauer pajamas.
* Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next half-hour torturing himself until he gave up the location of the keys.
* 1.6 billion Chinese are angry with Jack Bauer. Sounds like a fair fight.
* Let's get one thing straight, the only reason you are conscious right now is because Jack Bauer does not feel like carrying you.
* When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer hates lemonade.
* Jack Bauer played Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun and won.
* Jack Bauer was never addicted to heroin. Heroin was addicted to Jack Bauer.
* Jack Bauer once won a game of Connect 4 in 3 moves.
* Osama bin Laden's recent proposal for truce is a direct result of him finding out that Jack Bauer is, in fact, still alive.
* Jack Bauer doesn't miss. If he didn't hit you it's because he was shooting at another terrorist twelve miles away.
* When Jack Bauer was a child, he made his mother finish his vegetables.
* Jack Bauer won the Tour de France on a unicycle to prove to Lance Armstrong it wasn't a big deal.
* Jack Bauer killed 93 people in just 4 days time. Wait, that is a real fact.
* Simon Says should be renamed to Jack Bauer Says because if Jack Bauer says something then you better do it.
* Killing Jack Bauer doesn't make him dead. It just makes him angry.
* Jack Bauer's favorite color is severe terror alert red. His second favorite color is violet, but just because it sounds like violent.
* When you open a can of whoop-a$$, Jack Bauer jumps out.
* When Google can't find something, it asks Jack Bauer for help.
* You can lead a horse to water. Jack Bauer can make him drink.
* Jack Bauer can get McDonald's breakfast after 10:30.
* When the boogie man goes to sleep, he checks his closet for Jack Bauer.
* Every mathematical inequality officially ends with "< Jack Bauer".
* In 96 hours, Jack Bauer has killed 93 people and saved the world 4 times. What the heck have you done with your life?
* Jack Bauer got Hellen Keller to talk.
* If you spell Jack Bauer in a Scrabble game, you win. Forever.
* In kindergarten, Jack Bauer killed a terrorist for Show and Tell.
* Jack Bauer can order a Big Mac at Burger King.
* Guns don't kill people, Jack Bauer kills people.
* Jack Bauer laughs at the movie Mission Impossible. There is no such thing as an impossible mission for Jack.
* Jack Bauer once killed so many terrorists that at one point, the #5 CIA Most Wanted fugitive was an 18-year-old teenager in Malaysia who downloaded the movie Dodgeball.
* If Jack and MacGyver were locked in a room together, Jack would make a bomb out of MacGyver and get out.
* What color is Jack Bauer's blood? Trick question. Jack Bauer does not bleed.
That makes me want to see if I can find list of Jack Bauer "one-liners" he has said in "24":
"This isn't over yet."
"It felt pretty personal when you killed my wife."
"I'm gonna need a hacksaw."
"Trust me, you dont wanna go down this road with me."
I guess I am gonna have to search for more :)
* If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and he had a gun with 2 bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.
* If you wake up in the morning, it's because Jack Bauer spared your life.
* Upon hearing that he was played by Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Bauer killed Sutherland. Jack Bauer gets played by no man.
* If it tastes like chicken, looks like chicken, and feels like chicken, but Jack Bauer says its beef. Then it's definitely beef.
* Superman wears Jack Bauer pajamas.
* Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next half-hour torturing himself until he gave up the location of the keys.
* 1.6 billion Chinese are angry with Jack Bauer. Sounds like a fair fight.
* Let's get one thing straight, the only reason you are conscious right now is because Jack Bauer does not feel like carrying you.
* When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer hates lemonade.
* Jack Bauer played Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun and won.
* Jack Bauer was never addicted to heroin. Heroin was addicted to Jack Bauer.
* Jack Bauer once won a game of Connect 4 in 3 moves.
* Osama bin Laden's recent proposal for truce is a direct result of him finding out that Jack Bauer is, in fact, still alive.
* Jack Bauer doesn't miss. If he didn't hit you it's because he was shooting at another terrorist twelve miles away.
* When Jack Bauer was a child, he made his mother finish his vegetables.
* Jack Bauer won the Tour de France on a unicycle to prove to Lance Armstrong it wasn't a big deal.
* Jack Bauer killed 93 people in just 4 days time. Wait, that is a real fact.
* Simon Says should be renamed to Jack Bauer Says because if Jack Bauer says something then you better do it.
* Killing Jack Bauer doesn't make him dead. It just makes him angry.
* Jack Bauer's favorite color is severe terror alert red. His second favorite color is violet, but just because it sounds like violent.
* When you open a can of whoop-a$$, Jack Bauer jumps out.
* When Google can't find something, it asks Jack Bauer for help.
* You can lead a horse to water. Jack Bauer can make him drink.
* Jack Bauer can get McDonald's breakfast after 10:30.
* When the boogie man goes to sleep, he checks his closet for Jack Bauer.
* Every mathematical inequality officially ends with "< Jack Bauer".
* In 96 hours, Jack Bauer has killed 93 people and saved the world 4 times. What the heck have you done with your life?
* Jack Bauer got Hellen Keller to talk.
* If you spell Jack Bauer in a Scrabble game, you win. Forever.
* In kindergarten, Jack Bauer killed a terrorist for Show and Tell.
* Jack Bauer can order a Big Mac at Burger King.
* Guns don't kill people, Jack Bauer kills people.
* Jack Bauer laughs at the movie Mission Impossible. There is no such thing as an impossible mission for Jack.
* Jack Bauer once killed so many terrorists that at one point, the #5 CIA Most Wanted fugitive was an 18-year-old teenager in Malaysia who downloaded the movie Dodgeball.
* If Jack and MacGyver were locked in a room together, Jack would make a bomb out of MacGyver and get out.
* What color is Jack Bauer's blood? Trick question. Jack Bauer does not bleed.
That makes me want to see if I can find list of Jack Bauer "one-liners" he has said in "24":
"This isn't over yet."
"It felt pretty personal when you killed my wife."
"I'm gonna need a hacksaw."
"Trust me, you dont wanna go down this road with me."
I guess I am gonna have to search for more :)
Faith vs. Fact
Recently a couple of co-workers and I got into a little discussion/debate on faith. I work with a lot of secular, non-Christian people, many agnostic, and some atheist so these discussions are not usually long, nor pleasant. They do however help me find out what people in "the real world" think about matters of faith. My conclusion is that they cannot understand the concept. While I offer as much info as I can, I cannot force a person to have faith. The best I can do is live by my faith and hope that the seeds I plant will eventually germinate.
Now I will be the first to admit that I do not agree 100% with the teachings of those in our church. I have some ideas that are not popular with some of the pastoral staff, elders, and senior members of our church. I do not push my ideas, but I will voice them if asked or the subject comes up. One of those opinions is that fact negates faith. I do not "know" that God exists, but I have a tremendous amount of faith (as well as some evidence) that he does. I do not know that he will answer my prayers, but I have faith that he will do what is best for me. It is a fact that electricity exists. I know for a fact that it will power my devices at that house. I take it for granted that when I press the PC power switch, the PC will turn on. I know it will because of the things that I know are true. If I knew God existed, then I may take him for granted and just assume he will do what I expect he will.
I think we try to put to much human logic into our world. We want to think that God will use our definition of logic to further His Kingdom. When someone does something that they feel God is calling them to do and we do not think it is logical, we scoff. We do not take it in faith. I am one of the biggest offenders in that area. I am always looking for a more logical way of doing things. It may be to save time, multitasking, make something easier, or it may be an OC (obsessive-compulsive) thing. My wife may do something very considerate but I fail to see the logic in it. My wife is very much in tune with God. He speaks and she usually listens. I am not as in tune as she is, but when I feel God moving me to do something, I usually am pretty passionate in following through.
I have faith in a lot of things I cannot prove. Some theologians may beg to differ and point out things that prove things about God, but I am happy in knowing that I have a faith in a higher power who guides my life. All that happens, happens for a reason. I can chose to do other things, but ultimately, God wins.
Can I prove this? No, I just take it in faith.
Now I will be the first to admit that I do not agree 100% with the teachings of those in our church. I have some ideas that are not popular with some of the pastoral staff, elders, and senior members of our church. I do not push my ideas, but I will voice them if asked or the subject comes up. One of those opinions is that fact negates faith. I do not "know" that God exists, but I have a tremendous amount of faith (as well as some evidence) that he does. I do not know that he will answer my prayers, but I have faith that he will do what is best for me. It is a fact that electricity exists. I know for a fact that it will power my devices at that house. I take it for granted that when I press the PC power switch, the PC will turn on. I know it will because of the things that I know are true. If I knew God existed, then I may take him for granted and just assume he will do what I expect he will.
I think we try to put to much human logic into our world. We want to think that God will use our definition of logic to further His Kingdom. When someone does something that they feel God is calling them to do and we do not think it is logical, we scoff. We do not take it in faith. I am one of the biggest offenders in that area. I am always looking for a more logical way of doing things. It may be to save time, multitasking, make something easier, or it may be an OC (obsessive-compulsive) thing. My wife may do something very considerate but I fail to see the logic in it. My wife is very much in tune with God. He speaks and she usually listens. I am not as in tune as she is, but when I feel God moving me to do something, I usually am pretty passionate in following through.
I have faith in a lot of things I cannot prove. Some theologians may beg to differ and point out things that prove things about God, but I am happy in knowing that I have a faith in a higher power who guides my life. All that happens, happens for a reason. I can chose to do other things, but ultimately, God wins.
Can I prove this? No, I just take it in faith.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
It Ain't Windows
I have made the conversion over to Linux and I must admit that I am happy and a little disappointed at the same time. I have been able to get most all of my issues ironed out during the transformation process. The few that are left (My checkbook software, my invoicing software, and syncing my PDA) are livable, since I have to log on to the Windows box to do system updates and support my wife on that box as well.
The reason that I am happy is that I have proved to myself that Linux can compete with Windows as an alternative operating system. Alternatives usually are not as fluid as the primary choice, but will do the job nonetheless. In my case, I could use other software for my check book and for invoicing, but that would require me migrating data that is not easily done. I could start from scratch and run both versions of the software until I would no longer need the legacy stuff, but that is a tad inconvenient. However, that is still an option that I am considering. The PDA issue looks like a specific problem with my PDA, so I cannot fault Linux for that, although it would be nice to see the process become a bit more automated.
The reason I am a bit disappointed is because Linux is not Windows and I think I was expecting it to be just that. I know, I bash the Gates created monster quite a bit but Windows is a standard the world is used to. Linux was not designed to be a Windows replacement, but a Windows alternative. Most commercial software is written for PC 's and MAYBE Mac's, but very little commercial software is written for Linux. The bulk of software written for Linux is written by enthusiasts who write for a particular need. The bulk of Linux people do not need accounting software, I guess.
Windows tends to use some proprietary formats (office documents, audio and video, etc) while the Linux model supports a more open standard. That is one of the reasons I like Linux so much. I can view media that was created on almost any machine as long as the format is the standard. Another nice thing is that Linux can read other file systems (including NTFS) and write to some as well. Windows reads...Windows and DOS formats. You can buy software that allow you to read other formats and I even found one that lets you read AND write the ext2/3 format (without SAMBA). The big drawback is that the permissions are lost when you use this. Anyone can read and write to the partition.
Gaming, though not something I am concerned with, is still a Windows strength. Even simple games tend to look less polished in Linux than in Windows. I loaded a few simple card games on my test Linux box and they looked and acted rather boring. Eye candy is something that sells. People want "shiny" applications. I know I enjoy eye candy to a degree. I immediately changed my default Windows theme to a clone of the "Milk" theme for the Mac OS. I may not be a big Mac fan, but the eye candy quotient they have is high.
I got to thinking about the eye candy thing yesterday as I was playing with the composite manager on my Ubuntu Linux Box. I have a pretty good mid grade video card, so the effects were nice. Problem? The compmgr kept crashing as I would shut down. I guess I could have F2 and got a terminal and killed the process gracefully, but instead I did a to reboot. This is a known issue. Linux is not ready for "Joe User" yet. I can survive, but Mrs El Gee could not. All the little quirks would drive her nuts.
Am I disappointed enough to go back to Windows? Nah, I don't think so. I am having fun learning Linux just like I did learning Windows 10+ years ago. I am still an infant in my knowledge level, but I am comfortable making changes. Besides, I have test box I can do things on first if I am really nervous. I have a test box at work and one at home as well as a production box at home. I can test all I want.
I am sure I am going to get some flack from some of my die hard Windows colleagues about this, but I do not care. I am a explorer who loves to try new things. Consider this just one more thing I have tried before God takes me home.
The reason that I am happy is that I have proved to myself that Linux can compete with Windows as an alternative operating system. Alternatives usually are not as fluid as the primary choice, but will do the job nonetheless. In my case, I could use other software for my check book and for invoicing, but that would require me migrating data that is not easily done. I could start from scratch and run both versions of the software until I would no longer need the legacy stuff, but that is a tad inconvenient. However, that is still an option that I am considering. The PDA issue looks like a specific problem with my PDA, so I cannot fault Linux for that, although it would be nice to see the process become a bit more automated.
The reason I am a bit disappointed is because Linux is not Windows and I think I was expecting it to be just that. I know, I bash the Gates created monster quite a bit but Windows is a standard the world is used to. Linux was not designed to be a Windows replacement, but a Windows alternative. Most commercial software is written for PC 's and MAYBE Mac's, but very little commercial software is written for Linux. The bulk of software written for Linux is written by enthusiasts who write for a particular need. The bulk of Linux people do not need accounting software, I guess.
Windows tends to use some proprietary formats (office documents, audio and video, etc) while the Linux model supports a more open standard. That is one of the reasons I like Linux so much. I can view media that was created on almost any machine as long as the format is the standard. Another nice thing is that Linux can read other file systems (including NTFS) and write to some as well. Windows reads...Windows and DOS formats. You can buy software that allow you to read other formats and I even found one that lets you read AND write the ext2/3 format (without SAMBA). The big drawback is that the permissions are lost when you use this. Anyone can read and write to the partition.
Gaming, though not something I am concerned with, is still a Windows strength. Even simple games tend to look less polished in Linux than in Windows. I loaded a few simple card games on my test Linux box and they looked and acted rather boring. Eye candy is something that sells. People want "shiny" applications. I know I enjoy eye candy to a degree. I immediately changed my default Windows theme to a clone of the "Milk" theme for the Mac OS. I may not be a big Mac fan, but the eye candy quotient they have is high.
I got to thinking about the eye candy thing yesterday as I was playing with the composite manager on my Ubuntu Linux Box. I have a pretty good mid grade video card, so the effects were nice. Problem? The compmgr kept crashing as I would shut down. I guess I could have
Am I disappointed enough to go back to Windows? Nah, I don't think so. I am having fun learning Linux just like I did learning Windows 10+ years ago. I am still an infant in my knowledge level, but I am comfortable making changes. Besides, I have test box I can do things on first if I am really nervous. I have a test box at work and one at home as well as a production box at home. I can test all I want.
I am sure I am going to get some flack from some of my die hard Windows colleagues about this, but I do not care. I am a explorer who loves to try new things. Consider this just one more thing I have tried before God takes me home.
Mobility and Pain, Cold and Rain, Long Weekend Again, and My System is Down.
I woke up on Saturday and got ready to walk the dogs. My wife rolled over and said, "Aren't you going to take off your back brace? Your month is up." Holy Cow, I had forgotten! I had been in the thing so long that I had *almost* gotten used to it.
I walked the dogs and had coffee with a light breakfast. While my wife was bouncing around the gym, I started vacuuming the house. Without the brace, it was pretty easy. I have a neat little pattern that I can follow that helps. I vacuumed like my wife wanted me to: I moved as many things as I was allowed and used the edging tool to get along all the baseboards. It takes a while, but I got finished. It was a lot of bending and stretching and like a hard workout at the gym, I was a bit sore at the end of the day and the following morning.
The weekend was mostly cold and rainy. We did not go out (except to church and lunch afterwards) and I was getting a bit stir crazy. I watched the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica, a few episodes of Babylon 5, (second season ... I am trying to catch up), and the movie "Constantine" which was a waste of my time.
I worked with my wife and got her to drop Outlook Express and start using Thunderbird. I had an agenda...I want all the programs she uses to be the same on the PC as on the Linus partition. Hopefully, she can start using Linux part time. The first thing to do is get her using open source programs, which she has almost 100% converted over to. She uses Firefox and Open Office and I have her now using Thunderbird. She likes it better because the spam filter is built in. When she used Outhouse Express, she needed an external one (I chose K9 for her...which is very good, btw). I started getting her set up on Linux (with a basic account) but I had problems with a feature she relies heavily on in Windows...Flash. The Comcast web site has all their news and program snippits in Flash format and I soon found out Linux, Firefox, and Flash do not always play well together. I got mine to work, but it was buggy. I tried the same thing on hers and it did not work, then I tweaked some more and hers worked but mine did not. I kept tweaking for a while, got frustrated, and decided to walk the dogs. When I got back, I was able to get both of ours to work, but the sound was out of synch with the video. It looks like Windows has another victory. I have been told this will work and that I need to install another sound daemon specifically for Firefox and Flash. Not sure I like that.
I think I could get my wife to use Linux 50% of the time with some hand holding , but I am not sure it is worth it. It will mean much more hand holding than I may have time for.
Our friends "Mickey and Mary"* closed on their house yesterday and will get the keys today. They dropped off some cookies for Care Group on Wednesday since they will not be able to show up until late. Her cookies are good, but she needs to bake them a minute or two less to make them chewy instead of crunchy.
My long weekend is now over. I did not do much other than clean up after my wife trimmed the dogs, fold some clothes and wash some dishes. I kind of wished I was at work yesterday, but it is not so bad yet, other than that after I got my report out, our ticketing system went tango-uniform (that is "toes up" (TU) in military speak). I cannot connect and I need to so I can update some ticket logs.
I have not heard from my son personally in weeks. I am not worried...he has called my wife and e-mailed her a few times. I just wished he would contact *me*. I miss him. He finished (graduated) high school early in an accelerated program so he could go to AIT as soon as possible. After that he works for a few months, house sits for us, and then goes to Houston to UTI to begin classes.
OKAY! The server is back so I can get some work done. More updates later.
I walked the dogs and had coffee with a light breakfast. While my wife was bouncing around the gym, I started vacuuming the house. Without the brace, it was pretty easy. I have a neat little pattern that I can follow that helps. I vacuumed like my wife wanted me to: I moved as many things as I was allowed and used the edging tool to get along all the baseboards. It takes a while, but I got finished. It was a lot of bending and stretching and like a hard workout at the gym, I was a bit sore at the end of the day and the following morning.
The weekend was mostly cold and rainy. We did not go out (except to church and lunch afterwards) and I was getting a bit stir crazy. I watched the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica, a few episodes of Babylon 5, (second season ... I am trying to catch up), and the movie "Constantine" which was a waste of my time.
I worked with my wife and got her to drop Outlook Express and start using Thunderbird. I had an agenda...I want all the programs she uses to be the same on the PC as on the Linus partition. Hopefully, she can start using Linux part time. The first thing to do is get her using open source programs, which she has almost 100% converted over to. She uses Firefox and Open Office and I have her now using Thunderbird. She likes it better because the spam filter is built in. When she used Outhouse Express, she needed an external one (I chose K9 for her...which is very good, btw). I started getting her set up on Linux (with a basic account) but I had problems with a feature she relies heavily on in Windows...Flash. The Comcast web site has all their news and program snippits in Flash format and I soon found out Linux, Firefox, and Flash do not always play well together. I got mine to work, but it was buggy. I tried the same thing on hers and it did not work, then I tweaked some more and hers worked but mine did not. I kept tweaking for a while, got frustrated, and decided to walk the dogs. When I got back, I was able to get both of ours to work, but the sound was out of synch with the video. It looks like Windows has another victory. I have been told this will work and that I need to install another sound daemon specifically for Firefox and Flash. Not sure I like that.
I think I could get my wife to use Linux 50% of the time with some hand holding , but I am not sure it is worth it. It will mean much more hand holding than I may have time for.
Our friends "Mickey and Mary"* closed on their house yesterday and will get the keys today. They dropped off some cookies for Care Group on Wednesday since they will not be able to show up until late. Her cookies are good, but she needs to bake them a minute or two less to make them chewy instead of crunchy.
My long weekend is now over. I did not do much other than clean up after my wife trimmed the dogs, fold some clothes and wash some dishes. I kind of wished I was at work yesterday, but it is not so bad yet, other than that after I got my report out, our ticketing system went tango-uniform (that is "toes up" (TU) in military speak). I cannot connect and I need to so I can update some ticket logs.
I have not heard from my son personally in weeks. I am not worried...he has called my wife and e-mailed her a few times. I just wished he would contact *me*. I miss him. He finished (graduated) high school early in an accelerated program so he could go to AIT as soon as possible. After that he works for a few months, house sits for us, and then goes to Houston to UTI to begin classes.
OKAY! The server is back so I can get some work done. More updates later.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Tax Time, Brat Time, Repotting Time.
I finalize our taxes for 2005 last night. I had them completed about a week or two ago, but I wanted to make sure we had all of our paperwork. I am pretty sure we have it all now and if not, oh well, I can always amend them :)
We received less this year than we did last year for a couple of reasons. We gave more to charity last year (we donated a 1992 Honda that was in fair condition) and I could not claim my son on this years taxes (he made enough to keep me from claim him). No big deal. It would be nice to have that extra $1000 we got last year, but I am just happy I do not owe. I am pretty good at refunds. This year that money goes towards new living room furniture.
My wife spent last night repotting plants. It would not have been so bad, but the temperature dropped 40 degrees in less than 24 hours and that made repotting uncomfortable. I repotted my mango plant. The roots were not as big as I thought, but I was told to pinch off an inch or so off each one, to help it grow better. The new pot is a cobalt blue and is stoneware. Much nicer than the cheap plastic one it was in before.
Tonight I am supposed to go over to *Mickey's apartment for a "man's night". The only problem is that the wives will be there as well. Not that I don't want my wife there...no not at all. The original plan was for the women to have a "slumber party" and some of the guys were going to have a "Band of Brothers" marathon, but the slumber party was cancelled. That means some of the women will be over at "Mickey" and his wife's apartment. It is a small apartment and it is going to be crowded. Before I go I have to go to Sam's club and pick up a Rotisserie chicken and some buns for the bratwurst we are having.
I am happy to say that tonight is the last night I have to wear my back brace. I wore it 4 weeks (per doctors orders) and I will be so glad to get this off! My incision is still a bit sore, but I think that is because the brace is a bit too big for me. I made the mistake of keeping it too loose when I sleep and it has gotten twisted up a few times. When I woke up, I had to twist it back into place and cinch it up. I have been wearing it 23.5 hours a day for a month. The only time it comes off is when I shower.
I think I failed to mention that "Mickey" and his wife were approved for the house and they close on it Monday. I am so happy for them. They have been living in an apartment for over a year and they really have not enjoyed it at all. The neighbors loud and cruise the lot like it is some barrio / ghetto, which it is not. Our Care group has been praying for them for a while now and it is nice to see that their prayers have been answered. The only bad thing about them moving is that they will be 30 minutes away instead of 5. They are moving 3 towns north of us, a bit further out in the country, but still in a housing development.
I got a call from *Aaron, another of my Christian brothers at church, asking me if I could help him with a Windows printing issue he is having. It is not your run of the mill issue at all. He is a Unix guy who is trying to configure his Arch Linux box to act as a print server for his wife's laptop. SAMBA is giving him a hard time, so I told him to try mapping to the Linux box on port 631 (I think that is the port, but he can look it up) from CUPS. Samba printing has been flaky sometimes and CUPS may be more stable. He offered to pay me, but I do not like taking money from church family unless they insist or would be offended. Besides, he knows more about Linux than I do.
I see from the clock on the wall that it is almost quitting time. Not that there was much to do today. Lately there has been VERY little to do for me. Other people have a lot to do but there work is specialized enough that I cannot help them. I offered, but I knew it was in vain.
*Not their real names.
We received less this year than we did last year for a couple of reasons. We gave more to charity last year (we donated a 1992 Honda that was in fair condition) and I could not claim my son on this years taxes (he made enough to keep me from claim him). No big deal. It would be nice to have that extra $1000 we got last year, but I am just happy I do not owe. I am pretty good at refunds. This year that money goes towards new living room furniture.
My wife spent last night repotting plants. It would not have been so bad, but the temperature dropped 40 degrees in less than 24 hours and that made repotting uncomfortable. I repotted my mango plant. The roots were not as big as I thought, but I was told to pinch off an inch or so off each one, to help it grow better. The new pot is a cobalt blue and is stoneware. Much nicer than the cheap plastic one it was in before.
Tonight I am supposed to go over to *Mickey's apartment for a "man's night". The only problem is that the wives will be there as well. Not that I don't want my wife there...no not at all. The original plan was for the women to have a "slumber party" and some of the guys were going to have a "Band of Brothers" marathon, but the slumber party was cancelled. That means some of the women will be over at "Mickey" and his wife's apartment. It is a small apartment and it is going to be crowded. Before I go I have to go to Sam's club and pick up a Rotisserie chicken and some buns for the bratwurst we are having.
I am happy to say that tonight is the last night I have to wear my back brace. I wore it 4 weeks (per doctors orders) and I will be so glad to get this off! My incision is still a bit sore, but I think that is because the brace is a bit too big for me. I made the mistake of keeping it too loose when I sleep and it has gotten twisted up a few times. When I woke up, I had to twist it back into place and cinch it up. I have been wearing it 23.5 hours a day for a month. The only time it comes off is when I shower.
I think I failed to mention that "Mickey" and his wife were approved for the house and they close on it Monday. I am so happy for them. They have been living in an apartment for over a year and they really have not enjoyed it at all. The neighbors loud and cruise the lot like it is some barrio / ghetto, which it is not. Our Care group has been praying for them for a while now and it is nice to see that their prayers have been answered. The only bad thing about them moving is that they will be 30 minutes away instead of 5. They are moving 3 towns north of us, a bit further out in the country, but still in a housing development.
I got a call from *Aaron, another of my Christian brothers at church, asking me if I could help him with a Windows printing issue he is having. It is not your run of the mill issue at all. He is a Unix guy who is trying to configure his Arch Linux box to act as a print server for his wife's laptop. SAMBA is giving him a hard time, so I told him to try mapping to the Linux box on port 631 (I think that is the port, but he can look it up) from CUPS. Samba printing has been flaky sometimes and CUPS may be more stable. He offered to pay me, but I do not like taking money from church family unless they insist or would be offended. Besides, he knows more about Linux than I do.
I see from the clock on the wall that it is almost quitting time. Not that there was much to do today. Lately there has been VERY little to do for me. Other people have a lot to do but there work is specialized enough that I cannot help them. I offered, but I knew it was in vain.
*Not their real names.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Rest, Anxiety, Profits, and Plants
I had a great nights sleep. After only having 4.5 hours the night before and having a full day on top of that, I needed the 7 hours I got last night. Sleep does a body good. It was not overly comfortable sleep, due to the back brace, but I only have to wear it 2 more nights. Then I am out of the brace so I can move freely again. Thank you dear God for taking care of me and giving me a good recovery.
My wife and I are under a bit of stress due to some recent financial issues. I have a full time job that pays the NORMAL expenses. My wife has a part time job that augments that, but we are getting dangerously close to living paycheck to paycheck. We are not doing badly, but we have some debt I wish we did not have. Recently we moved one bill (our home improvements) to another bank that offered us a much lower rate and no transfer fees. That should allow us to pay off the debt sooner, however, we are still dealing with the bigger problem: the increase in our cost of living. Food, utilities, and gasoline have all gone up. Our property taxes went up but our auto insurance has gone down (just a bit). My overall pay has gone up a bit and we are able to save a bit more, but dog expenses have gone up and with the summer months ahead, it is going to get expensive with our new rate on electricity if we have a hot summer. We had been locked in to a very low rate (7.9 cents per kilowatt hour) for three years, but that contract expired last month. During that time, the electricity rates have DOUBLED, meaning that if we have a summer like we did last year, our average summer electricity bill will be $300. Our highest last year was $180. I can only ask God to provide for us. The likelihood of our rates going down are slim, so I am hoping new financial opportunities open up.
My employer has recently posted a profit of $1.2 billion this quarter. That is fantastic news for my company. The bad news is that my division, which usually makes a profit, lost money. Needless to say, no raises this year. This is my third year and we only have had one raise, and it was not enough to cover the cost of living. I realize this is for the greater good. I can only ask (and expect) God to provide. I have been asking for direction on what he wants me to do, and I felt led last November to switch departments. My carnal self is questioning that move, but my spiritual side is telling me to hold on. The good news about all of this is that if we have at least 2 more good quarters, we stand to get a bonus in December. We did last year, and it was not bad. It allowed us to have a 100% cash Christmas and buy a couple of expensive (but needed) items, one been new tires for my truck.
Our tax refund should be enough to buy a new couch to replace the old ratty looking one we have now. While we need a lot of things, I promised my wife we would get this as soon as we got our tax refund. I keep my promises. I really would like to buy her a laptop with part of it, but that is not "needed" right now. It would be nice (oh boy, would it), but we really do not need to PC's right now.
All in all, God has been pretty good to us. He has not opened many doors for PC work (for profit that is), but either the time is coming, or I should not be doing it. I cut grass for my neighbor in the summer, and that helps out. With my wife working 15 hours a week, that helps as well, but you must replace what wears out and to be honest, some of our clothes are looking a bit thread bare.
My mango plant is looking pretty good. The weather has been nice the past few days, but since the plant is still fragile and it has been windy, I do not want to place it outside to be damaged. I will be content with leaving it in the window where it will get a lot of sun. It has a new grown coming in on the top, most likely a cluster of 3 leaves. I need to put it in a better pot, either clay or ceramic. I do not like the plastic on it is in.
My wife and I are under a bit of stress due to some recent financial issues. I have a full time job that pays the NORMAL expenses. My wife has a part time job that augments that, but we are getting dangerously close to living paycheck to paycheck. We are not doing badly, but we have some debt I wish we did not have. Recently we moved one bill (our home improvements) to another bank that offered us a much lower rate and no transfer fees. That should allow us to pay off the debt sooner, however, we are still dealing with the bigger problem: the increase in our cost of living. Food, utilities, and gasoline have all gone up. Our property taxes went up but our auto insurance has gone down (just a bit). My overall pay has gone up a bit and we are able to save a bit more, but dog expenses have gone up and with the summer months ahead, it is going to get expensive with our new rate on electricity if we have a hot summer. We had been locked in to a very low rate (7.9 cents per kilowatt hour) for three years, but that contract expired last month. During that time, the electricity rates have DOUBLED, meaning that if we have a summer like we did last year, our average summer electricity bill will be $300. Our highest last year was $180. I can only ask God to provide for us. The likelihood of our rates going down are slim, so I am hoping new financial opportunities open up.
My employer has recently posted a profit of $1.2 billion this quarter. That is fantastic news for my company. The bad news is that my division, which usually makes a profit, lost money. Needless to say, no raises this year. This is my third year and we only have had one raise, and it was not enough to cover the cost of living. I realize this is for the greater good. I can only ask (and expect) God to provide. I have been asking for direction on what he wants me to do, and I felt led last November to switch departments. My carnal self is questioning that move, but my spiritual side is telling me to hold on. The good news about all of this is that if we have at least 2 more good quarters, we stand to get a bonus in December. We did last year, and it was not bad. It allowed us to have a 100% cash Christmas and buy a couple of expensive (but needed) items, one been new tires for my truck.
Our tax refund should be enough to buy a new couch to replace the old ratty looking one we have now. While we need a lot of things, I promised my wife we would get this as soon as we got our tax refund. I keep my promises. I really would like to buy her a laptop with part of it, but that is not "needed" right now. It would be nice (oh boy, would it), but we really do not need to PC's right now.
All in all, God has been pretty good to us. He has not opened many doors for PC work (for profit that is), but either the time is coming, or I should not be doing it. I cut grass for my neighbor in the summer, and that helps out. With my wife working 15 hours a week, that helps as well, but you must replace what wears out and to be honest, some of our clothes are looking a bit thread bare.
My mango plant is looking pretty good. The weather has been nice the past few days, but since the plant is still fragile and it has been windy, I do not want to place it outside to be damaged. I will be content with leaving it in the window where it will get a lot of sun. It has a new grown coming in on the top, most likely a cluster of 3 leaves. I need to put it in a better pot, either clay or ceramic. I do not like the plastic on it is in.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Some Serious Eye Candy, Dinner With a Friend, and Lessons Learned
I worked on my Linux box last night after I got home. I stayed up until midnight (I get up at 5 AM) tweaking by Ubuntu Linux box until I was pretty happy with the way it looks. I will no doubt tweak some more, but for now it looks rather sweet. I have a nice wallpaper, big icons, custom menu bars and a neat little hack that puts a terminal (for command line operations) on the desk is such a way that it looks like it is part of the desktop wallpaper. Pics will be posted soon.
Late last week I got an e-mail from an old co-worker of mine Ray* who lives in NC. He was going to be in the area on business and wanted to know if I was free for dinner. I told him I was free on Tuesday (Valentine's Day) so we planned on meeting at Razzoo's Cajun Cafe. The food is usually pretty good and the atmosphere is fun.
"Ray" called me shortly after 5 PM and told me he was on his way. He had gotten some bad directions from someone and ended up heading away from the restaurant, but he made there eventually. I guess it had been about 5-6 years since I had seen "Ray". He still looks the same, not like me who has aged a lot in the past 5 years. He is a dedicated family man who has been a good provider for his family. He recently got laid off from his job (after getting a juicy severance package) and started a gig as a contractor via Manpower. He said the pay is pretty good, but no benefits to speak of.
He asked me about my back and what meds I was taking. I told him pre-surgery they prescribed Ultracet and after the surgery they gave me Vicodin, both are pain killers. I soon learned he has a problem with his back as well only his appears to be much worse than mine. He said at one time he was popping the Percacet more frequently than he wanted so he stopped taking them. I know that without them, he is in great pain. Since he has to pay for his own benefits now, he cannot afford the surgery. He has to live with the pain until he can afford the surgery. I am going to raise him up in prayer tonight at Care Group.
The meal was pretty good at Razzoo's. He had a combo platter (which is served up in a huge cast iron skillet) and I had my usual, crawfish etouffee. I even went all out and had dessert, their version of cheesecake, a "Zydeco Dancer". I was pretty full when I left the table.
We chatted a few more minutes outside after dinner until we both decided to get home (well, he was going back to his hotel for some shut eye). I told him to follow me out of the parking lot and I would guide him towards the hotel. I made sure he exited at the proper place and I headed home to begin my geekfest.
My wife told me a few days ago that she saw our son a few days ago. She stated that he looked pretty rough. Living on his own, paying his own bills, working on his car, going to school, working, and being in the National Guard has really be exhausting on him. My wife told me that he is having dental problems and has no dental insurance. His wisdom teeth are coming in (I think they are impacted) and his face appears a bit swollen. I am hurting for him.
When a parent sees their child suffering, the first thing they want to do is reach out and help. However, when the birds leave the nest, the parents have to let them live and learn, even if the lessons will be painful. I get torn up when I hear about all the things my son has to endure by himself, but I have to remember that it was he who left. I did not kick him out.
I guess the bright side to all of this is that he still has to go to AIT and at least there he can get medical...he is paying for the coverage with his National Guard pay so he may as well use it. After he gets out of AIT, his plans are to go to Houston and enroll at UTI. I am not sure how he plans on affording it, but if he ca do it, I will be very proud of him
*Not his real name, but you knew that...
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Some Choice
I got an "offer" in the mail yesterday informing me that because I am a $Mega_IT_Company employee, I qualify for a free phone, 25% off the monthly rate and 50% off the regular price of additional hardware. The offer came from Cingular Wireless, the company that bought out AT&T, my wireless provider. Here is the story:
I signed up with AT&T, got on a family plan (me and my wife share 800 minutes with unlimited weekends and free mobile to mobile calling), and AT&T gave us 2 free LG phones. All I had to do was sign up for a 1 year contract. Being and employee of $Mega_IT_Company, I was eligible for 25% discount, bringing our total to about $65 a month, tax included. Not bad for two phones and all those minutes.
Cingular buys out AT&T and now I am getting gently pressured to switch over to a Cingular rate plan. To use a new plan, I need a new phone (so they say) and if I get a new phone, I cannot use my AT&T SIM in the Cingular phone. You see, the phones are locked to only work with one providers SIM's, unless you can get your hands on the unlock codes from the phone manufacturer. You can find the codes posted online if you want to do this yourself, but there is a chance that if you make a mistake entering the code, the phone is locked out permanently. But I digress.
Okay, I look at the rate plans for Cingular. They offer less minutes (in my case 700 instead of 800) for the same money. They do however, offer rollover minutes. Any minutes you do not use "roll over" to the next month. If they those are not used, they roll over again, and so on. Sounds mice, but we have not gone over our minutes yet. I only got this level of plan because it is the smallest one with unlimited weekends, which is the time we use the most minutes.
Now if I decide to bite for these rate plans, I have to get a Cingular phone. The choices they are offering me for free are not great. The first is the Samsung x497. It is a clam shell style phone (the only kind I care for) that is silver and black. It has mostly good reviews (3.5 out of 5) and the major complaint is crampness of the keys and the speaker phone activation sequence. A few people stated that the external display is not very clear when viewed in bright light or at night. That would be a problem, since I use my phone as a watch and need to see it everywhere. It does support mp3 ringtones and replaceable wallpaper. A data cable is available (for a nominal fee of course!) to allow this to be done via PC.
The other is the low end Nokia 6030. Nokia's are know for great quality, but I am not sure about this one. Reviews have not been great and it is not a clam shell style phone. I am not a fan of regular "stick" phones.
The offer we received says "a free phone", but initially they gave us two. I am not sure if they will do this again or not. I guess I am going to have to call and find out. I hate talking to customer support. They be willing to play ball if they want me to move away from the AT&T rate plan.
I signed up with AT&T, got on a family plan (me and my wife share 800 minutes with unlimited weekends and free mobile to mobile calling), and AT&T gave us 2 free LG phones. All I had to do was sign up for a 1 year contract. Being and employee of $Mega_IT_Company, I was eligible for 25% discount, bringing our total to about $65 a month, tax included. Not bad for two phones and all those minutes.
Cingular buys out AT&T and now I am getting gently pressured to switch over to a Cingular rate plan. To use a new plan, I need a new phone (so they say) and if I get a new phone, I cannot use my AT&T SIM in the Cingular phone. You see, the phones are locked to only work with one providers SIM's, unless you can get your hands on the unlock codes from the phone manufacturer. You can find the codes posted online if you want to do this yourself, but there is a chance that if you make a mistake entering the code, the phone is locked out permanently. But I digress.
Okay, I look at the rate plans for Cingular. They offer less minutes (in my case 700 instead of 800) for the same money. They do however, offer rollover minutes. Any minutes you do not use "roll over" to the next month. If they those are not used, they roll over again, and so on. Sounds mice, but we have not gone over our minutes yet. I only got this level of plan because it is the smallest one with unlimited weekends, which is the time we use the most minutes.
Now if I decide to bite for these rate plans, I have to get a Cingular phone. The choices they are offering me for free are not great. The first is the Samsung x497. It is a clam shell style phone (the only kind I care for) that is silver and black. It has mostly good reviews (3.5 out of 5) and the major complaint is crampness of the keys and the speaker phone activation sequence. A few people stated that the external display is not very clear when viewed in bright light or at night. That would be a problem, since I use my phone as a watch and need to see it everywhere. It does support mp3 ringtones and replaceable wallpaper. A data cable is available (for a nominal fee of course!) to allow this to be done via PC.
The other is the low end Nokia 6030. Nokia's are know for great quality, but I am not sure about this one. Reviews have not been great and it is not a clam shell style phone. I am not a fan of regular "stick" phones.
The offer we received says "a free phone", but initially they gave us two. I am not sure if they will do this again or not. I guess I am going to have to call and find out. I hate talking to customer support. They be willing to play ball if they want me to move away from the AT&T rate plan.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
At Least I Know Why
I have been trying to synch my Palm Tungsten E with my new Linux box and I wondered why I have been having trouble...and now I know. It is a know bug with Linux synching software. I have the Palm photo software on the T|E and the file is a compressed in ROM and decompressed when ran, which exceeds the file size allowed by the Linux software. OK all you PC fans, you have one on us Linux geeks. I will even give you another...
Linux does not have a very good selection of business software. I was doing a run through the today and figured out that my PC invoicing software, XS-Invoicing does not have a Linux version and I *really* like XS-Invoicing, so I will need to do that in Windows as well.
My punch list:
* Ability to synch my Palm T|E and install Palm software (Arrggh...)
* Import all of my data (bookmarks, e-mail addresses, e-mails, etc) (WIP)
* Configure XS-Invoicing to run under WINE or find a good replacement
The Palm synching issue will not be resolved soon, so I will be forced to use Windows for that.
I have imported all my bookmarks, all my mail and some of my e-mail addresses. I have some in my PDA and some in Thunderbird. The ones in T-Bird were easy to import. The ones in my PDA are going to be harder because I have not been uniform in my field mappings on my PDA. For example, if I have 4 fields for contact info, sometimes I use the first field for e-mail addresses and sometimes I use it for phone numbers. Importing this makes a mess, so I have to go and clean up the field mappings before I can export from Palm Desktop and import it into T-Bird. This has been work. Too bad that Palm does not make a version of Palm Desktop for Linux. I am pretty sure it will not run well in WINE, due the way each OS handles USB.
If XS-Invoicing will run under WINE, I may be in good shape. I will have to give it a try.
Linux does not have a very good selection of business software. I was doing a run through the today and figured out that my PC invoicing software, XS-Invoicing does not have a Linux version and I *really* like XS-Invoicing, so I will need to do that in Windows as well.
My punch list:
* Ability to synch my Palm T|E and install Palm software (Arrggh...)
* Import all of my data (bookmarks, e-mail addresses, e-mails, etc) (WIP)
* Configure XS-Invoicing to run under WINE or find a good replacement
The Palm synching issue will not be resolved soon, so I will be forced to use Windows for that.
I have imported all my bookmarks, all my mail and some of my e-mail addresses. I have some in my PDA and some in Thunderbird. The ones in T-Bird were easy to import. The ones in my PDA are going to be harder because I have not been uniform in my field mappings on my PDA. For example, if I have 4 fields for contact info, sometimes I use the first field for e-mail addresses and sometimes I use it for phone numbers. Importing this makes a mess, so I have to go and clean up the field mappings before I can export from Palm Desktop and import it into T-Bird. This has been work. Too bad that Palm does not make a version of Palm Desktop for Linux. I am pretty sure it will not run well in WINE, due the way each OS handles USB.
If XS-Invoicing will run under WINE, I may be in good shape. I will have to give it a try.
Geek Update
My punch list:
* Ability to share data between HD's (Complete)
* Ability to synch my Palm T|E and install Palm software (Arrggh...)
* Configure WINE to run AceMoney (Scratched)
* Find a good HTML editor (Complete)
* Test USB drive (Complete)
* Test card reader (Complete)
* Import all of my data (bookmarks, e-mail addresses, e-mails, etc) (WIP)
* Configure Analog for Linux to analyze my web logs (Complete)
I am only going to comment on the things that have changed, to save space and time.
* I have yet to get my PDA to *fully* synch with Linux. I get about 80% and it times out. Not 100% sure why. I thought it was AvantGo so I removed it and tried. It went further but still hung. Then I thought it might be the photos I have stored on my Palm so I removed them, but still not luck. I will keep playing with it.
* AceMoney, while running on Linux via WINE works but will not sort and that is a big thing. I also have trouble with Windows and Linux sharing the same data file. That is important because if I cannot do the bills, I need my wife to be able to log in via Windows and do them. There are issues in the way that AceMoney/Linux/Windows maps drive letters, so I will just leave it on Windows, log in every day to do my updates in AceMoney and for my wife on the Windows box. A pain, but a livable one.
* I published my first updates to my website (www.mistergeek.com) completely in Linux. I used Bluefish as an HTML editor (a rather nice one I must say) and GFTP to publish the files. Nice process overall.
* I have imported some of my mail, all my bookmarks, but none of my e-mail addresses. I thought that import/export could get messy, so I started moving everything to my IMAP e-mail account on www.myrealbox.com, figuring that as long as I have less than 10 megs of mail (I have about 6), moving it would be easy. WRONG. I got all but two folders and those two are somehow choking my IMAP account. I may have to strip/forward all the html from them (I think that is causing the problem) and organize them a bit later. I tried to log on to the web and manually remove the corrupted folders, but it times out and gives an error message.
I started to use Evolution as a PIM, but it has a bug that causes the application to crash when you click on "Calendar". With no answer available (that I could find), I loaded up Thunderbird and it is doing OK so far. I just need to configure my Mistergeek mailbox, but until then, I can do it all via web.
* Analog was a bit more complex (due to the fact that the files are scattered all over the Linux partition) than Windows. All the Analog files in Windows are in one folder, in Linux they are not. Once I figured out how everything worked, I made a few changes in my analog.cfg file and I was able to run my reports from Analog in Linux.
So if I am not forgetting anything, the only two things I need Windows for is my finances and to Synch my PDA. Not too bad, eh? I am sure I will find an answer for the PDA issue, but until then, I can fire up the Windows partition every day for a few minutes to synch my PDA and do my finances. BtW, I know there are a few finance programs that run very well in Windows and Linux (Java based ones), but since I may not do the finances forever (and since AceMoney does not export to a format usable by those programs) AND I tend to run one data file rather than monthly ones, the best solution is for me to stay with AceMoney on Windows.
Most likely I will not have any new geek updates until I fix the PDA issue, but stay tuned for lots of other updates!
* Ability to share data between HD's (Complete)
* Ability to synch my Palm T|E and install Palm software (Arrggh...)
* Configure WINE to run AceMoney (Scratched)
* Find a good HTML editor (Complete)
* Test USB drive (Complete)
* Test card reader (Complete)
* Import all of my data (bookmarks, e-mail addresses, e-mails, etc) (WIP)
* Configure Analog for Linux to analyze my web logs (Complete)
I am only going to comment on the things that have changed, to save space and time.
* I have yet to get my PDA to *fully* synch with Linux. I get about 80% and it times out. Not 100% sure why. I thought it was AvantGo so I removed it and tried. It went further but still hung. Then I thought it might be the photos I have stored on my Palm so I removed them, but still not luck. I will keep playing with it.
* AceMoney, while running on Linux via WINE works but will not sort and that is a big thing. I also have trouble with Windows and Linux sharing the same data file. That is important because if I cannot do the bills, I need my wife to be able to log in via Windows and do them. There are issues in the way that AceMoney/Linux/Windows maps drive letters, so I will just leave it on Windows, log in every day to do my updates in AceMoney and for my wife on the Windows box. A pain, but a livable one.
* I published my first updates to my website (www.mistergeek.com) completely in Linux. I used Bluefish as an HTML editor (a rather nice one I must say) and GFTP to publish the files. Nice process overall.
* I have imported some of my mail, all my bookmarks, but none of my e-mail addresses. I thought that import/export could get messy, so I started moving everything to my IMAP e-mail account on www.myrealbox.com, figuring that as long as I have less than 10 megs of mail (I have about 6), moving it would be easy. WRONG. I got all but two folders and those two are somehow choking my IMAP account. I may have to strip/forward all the html from them (I think that is causing the problem) and organize them a bit later. I tried to log on to the web and manually remove the corrupted folders, but it times out and gives an error message.
I started to use Evolution as a PIM, but it has a bug that causes the application to crash when you click on "Calendar". With no answer available (that I could find), I loaded up Thunderbird and it is doing OK so far. I just need to configure my Mistergeek mailbox, but until then, I can do it all via web.
* Analog was a bit more complex (due to the fact that the files are scattered all over the Linux partition) than Windows. All the Analog files in Windows are in one folder, in Linux they are not. Once I figured out how everything worked, I made a few changes in my analog.cfg file and I was able to run my reports from Analog in Linux.
So if I am not forgetting anything, the only two things I need Windows for is my finances and to Synch my PDA. Not too bad, eh? I am sure I will find an answer for the PDA issue, but until then, I can fire up the Windows partition every day for a few minutes to synch my PDA and do my finances. BtW, I know there are a few finance programs that run very well in Windows and Linux (Java based ones), but since I may not do the finances forever (and since AceMoney does not export to a format usable by those programs) AND I tend to run one data file rather than monthly ones, the best solution is for me to stay with AceMoney on Windows.
Most likely I will not have any new geek updates until I fix the PDA issue, but stay tuned for lots of other updates!
Friday, February 10, 2006
Non-Computer Update
Yesterday, 5 minutes before our weekly team meeting, we received an e-mail announcing that we have a new manager. My old manager is stepping up to manage my group, our manager is stepping into the technical lead position, and our old tech lead is moving into a purely technical position. Wow. I was very surprised. This is interesting because:
The old manager was not strong in many areas that you associate with managers, our new manager is.
The old Team Lead did not want to be in a role of authority and his replacement will have less responsibilities as a supervisor.
Interesting.
Last night I received an e-mail from an old friend in NC who will be in North Central Texas next week. We are meeting Tuesday evening, hopefully to have dinner. It will be nice to see him again. He is a Christian brother who is recently discover how good modern Christian music can be. He is a now a fan of Jeremy Camp.
I have been dispatching "quick response calls" the past two days for Canada. I normally only do them for the US and South America, but the regular dispatchers are in training and needed a hand. So far not too bad. I do not enjoy it, but at least I am busy.
We had a last minute project thrown at us that has taken more of my time than I would like but that is par for the course around here. We built a Linux server that needed to be shipped to NC and installed today. That was a problem because I did not have any relative information to give the local support group until about 8 AM this morning, and it is going to arrive at 9:30 my time. Looking at the clock on my Gnome desktop, I see it is past that time so I hope it has been delivered. I am the contact point and I hope it goes well. Logistics have been a problem, but the part the tech has to perform is a "milk run". All he has to do is show up, sign in, get the box, take it to the room where it will be set up, unbox it, hook up the LAN and power cables and turn it on. Then he locks the door behind him and checks out with Security. Easy enough, but many times easy projects cause the most problems. I guess once 10:30 our time rolls around, I will know for sure.
Pray for me!
The old manager was not strong in many areas that you associate with managers, our new manager is.
The old Team Lead did not want to be in a role of authority and his replacement will have less responsibilities as a supervisor.
Interesting.
Last night I received an e-mail from an old friend in NC who will be in North Central Texas next week. We are meeting Tuesday evening, hopefully to have dinner. It will be nice to see him again. He is a Christian brother who is recently discover how good modern Christian music can be. He is a now a fan of Jeremy Camp.
I have been dispatching "quick response calls" the past two days for Canada. I normally only do them for the US and South America, but the regular dispatchers are in training and needed a hand. So far not too bad. I do not enjoy it, but at least I am busy.
We had a last minute project thrown at us that has taken more of my time than I would like but that is par for the course around here. We built a Linux server that needed to be shipped to NC and installed today. That was a problem because I did not have any relative information to give the local support group until about 8 AM this morning, and it is going to arrive at 9:30 my time. Looking at the clock on my Gnome desktop, I see it is past that time so I hope it has been delivered. I am the contact point and I hope it goes well. Logistics have been a problem, but the part the tech has to perform is a "milk run". All he has to do is show up, sign in, get the box, take it to the room where it will be set up, unbox it, hook up the LAN and power cables and turn it on. Then he locks the door behind him and checks out with Security. Easy enough, but many times easy projects cause the most problems. I guess once 10:30 our time rolls around, I will know for sure.
Pray for me!
Some Degree of Success
My punch list yesterday as gotten a bit shorter:
* Ability to share data between HD's (Complete)
* Ability to synch my Palm T|E and install Palm software (WIP)
* Configure WINE to run AceMoney (99% Complete)
* Find a good HTML editor (Complete)
* Test USB drive (Complete)
* Test card reader (Complete)
* Import all of my data (bookmarks, e-mail addresses, e-mails, etc) (WIP)
* Configure Analog for Linux to analyze my web logs (50% Complete)
I had less on my "E:\" drive (/dev/SDA1) had less data on it than I though, so temporarily moving it to "F:\" (/dev/SDA5) was not a problem. I formatted it FAT32 from Linux and set my /etc/fstab to allow me to read and write to it. I eventually placed any file that I would need to access from BOTH Windows and Linux (sans the video files...I did not have enough room for them) on /dev/SDA1 and left all the Windows only (and video) files on /dev/SDA5.
I did not bother messing with the PDA since I knew that would be a big job and I did not have the time after moving all the files around. Will save that for last most likely. I did install Evolution, but I am not sure what proggie I want to synch to, Thunderbird or Evolution.
I configured WINE and configured/ran AceMoney but ran into a snag. In WINE, AceMoney will not sort the columns. This is a big problem for me and I have a few options: Find a way to fix it, find a new program in Linux that will allow me to import the AceMoney data, run it from Windows, or live with the problem. This is one I want to solve soon.
For the HTML editor, I chose Bluefish. I played with it a little, but I do not know if it is a keeper yet. I also installed NVU for the WYSIWYG stuff. I have used it before and it does an OK job as a WYSIWYG editor.
The USB drive and the card reader both worked perfectly as far as I could tell. I just need to learn how to unmount them properly. I am sure it is easy, I just need to learn how :)
I imported all of my bookmarks but have not started on addresses or mail yet since I do not know what client I will use. I am thinking Evolution may do the trick but having Thunderbird handle all my mail, news and PIM functionality is very appealing.
I downloaded and installed Analog to analyze my web sites logs, but did not configure it all the way. I copied over my config file I use in Windows but I need to change some of the settings to reflect Linux.
All in all things went well. I was up too late (11:30 PM or so) and got up at 5 AM, but I am not tired. I have been busy, but that is for the next update.
* Ability to share data between HD's (Complete)
* Ability to synch my Palm T|E and install Palm software (WIP)
* Configure WINE to run AceMoney (99% Complete)
* Find a good HTML editor (Complete)
* Test USB drive (Complete)
* Test card reader (Complete)
* Import all of my data (bookmarks, e-mail addresses, e-mails, etc) (WIP)
* Configure Analog for Linux to analyze my web logs (50% Complete)
I had less on my "E:\" drive (/dev/SDA1) had less data on it than I though, so temporarily moving it to "F:\" (/dev/SDA5) was not a problem. I formatted it FAT32 from Linux and set my /etc/fstab to allow me to read and write to it. I eventually placed any file that I would need to access from BOTH Windows and Linux (sans the video files...I did not have enough room for them) on /dev/SDA1 and left all the Windows only (and video) files on /dev/SDA5.
I did not bother messing with the PDA since I knew that would be a big job and I did not have the time after moving all the files around. Will save that for last most likely. I did install Evolution, but I am not sure what proggie I want to synch to, Thunderbird or Evolution.
I configured WINE and configured/ran AceMoney but ran into a snag. In WINE, AceMoney will not sort the columns. This is a big problem for me and I have a few options: Find a way to fix it, find a new program in Linux that will allow me to import the AceMoney data, run it from Windows, or live with the problem. This is one I want to solve soon.
For the HTML editor, I chose Bluefish. I played with it a little, but I do not know if it is a keeper yet. I also installed NVU for the WYSIWYG stuff. I have used it before and it does an OK job as a WYSIWYG editor.
The USB drive and the card reader both worked perfectly as far as I could tell. I just need to learn how to unmount them properly. I am sure it is easy, I just need to learn how :)
I imported all of my bookmarks but have not started on addresses or mail yet since I do not know what client I will use. I am thinking Evolution may do the trick but having Thunderbird handle all my mail, news and PIM functionality is very appealing.
I downloaded and installed Analog to analyze my web sites logs, but did not configure it all the way. I copied over my config file I use in Windows but I need to change some of the settings to reflect Linux.
All in all things went well. I was up too late (11:30 PM or so) and got up at 5 AM, but I am not tired. I have been busy, but that is for the next update.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
I Am Not Really Ant-Microsoft, I Promise
I get asked questions by friends, colleagues, church family, and family about my passion for free software any my disdane to using Microsoft products. It comes down to a just a few reasons, really.
1) God wants us to be good stewards of our resources. Why pay for something when there is a reasonably good substitute that is readily available and free? MS Office and Photoshop, while great products, are expensive. Open Office and The GIMP are free to use and almost as good. Also, why doesn't MS give their OS away for free? If their software is so much better than other companies, they could recoup any losses from OS sales from their "superior" software.
2) I do not like to put all my eggs in one basket. Whether it is Google or Microsoft I do not use on company exclusively for all my needs. MS writes some good software, but most of it is over priced and bloated. Most open source and free software is USUALLY less bloated, comparable to the big boys, and free for personal / family use.
3) I do not like proprietary formats. MS Office uses a proprietary format to create documents. Open Office follows the Open Document standard. Windows Movie Maker uses a proprietary format to save its files in. No other OS does this to the best of my knowledge.
Microsoft has claimed it creates some of the best software in the world. If that is so, then they ought to prove it by writing software that NATIVELY creates files in standardized formats. When I get sent a document, I should be able to read and edit it using any OS. If Windows and Windows software is superior to Linux and Mac, show us without making us compare apples and oranges (sorry about the pun). How can I PROVE MS Office is better than Open Office if the formats are not interchangeable? Even their file system is proprietary. At least in Linux, I can read (and write in many cases) most every file system known. In Linux I can read NTFS (the current MS standard), but cannot write to it properly. If I am in Windows, there are many programs that allow full read and write (with the proper permissions) to the Linux file systems.
I am not anti-Microsoft, but I am anti anyone who thinks they are the answer to all my computing needs, be it Apple, Adobe, Google, or Microsoft. Linux is open source. The programs installed are from many people and groups. The programs follow industry standards and are usually bloat-free.
Give me a free, stable, and secure OS for home use. Allow me to use my choice of software on that OS that follows the industry standards for all file formats. Allow the file system the ability to easily read and write to other files systems regardless of which OS it is. Make the OS and its software easy to install and remove, with little crap left behind.
Is that too much to ask?
1) God wants us to be good stewards of our resources. Why pay for something when there is a reasonably good substitute that is readily available and free? MS Office and Photoshop, while great products, are expensive. Open Office and The GIMP are free to use and almost as good. Also, why doesn't MS give their OS away for free? If their software is so much better than other companies, they could recoup any losses from OS sales from their "superior" software.
2) I do not like to put all my eggs in one basket. Whether it is Google or Microsoft I do not use on company exclusively for all my needs. MS writes some good software, but most of it is over priced and bloated. Most open source and free software is USUALLY less bloated, comparable to the big boys, and free for personal / family use.
3) I do not like proprietary formats. MS Office uses a proprietary format to create documents. Open Office follows the Open Document standard. Windows Movie Maker uses a proprietary format to save its files in. No other OS does this to the best of my knowledge.
Microsoft has claimed it creates some of the best software in the world. If that is so, then they ought to prove it by writing software that NATIVELY creates files in standardized formats. When I get sent a document, I should be able to read and edit it using any OS. If Windows and Windows software is superior to Linux and Mac, show us without making us compare apples and oranges (sorry about the pun). How can I PROVE MS Office is better than Open Office if the formats are not interchangeable? Even their file system is proprietary. At least in Linux, I can read (and write in many cases) most every file system known. In Linux I can read NTFS (the current MS standard), but cannot write to it properly. If I am in Windows, there are many programs that allow full read and write (with the proper permissions) to the Linux file systems.
I am not anti-Microsoft, but I am anti anyone who thinks they are the answer to all my computing needs, be it Apple, Adobe, Google, or Microsoft. Linux is open source. The programs installed are from many people and groups. The programs follow industry standards and are usually bloat-free.
Give me a free, stable, and secure OS for home use. Allow me to use my choice of software on that OS that follows the industry standards for all file formats. Allow the file system the ability to easily read and write to other files systems regardless of which OS it is. Make the OS and its software easy to install and remove, with little crap left behind.
Is that too much to ask?
Never as Easy as You Want it to Be
I am trying ever so hard to break the control that Microsoft has on my life. I do not mind using MS products once in a while, but I do not want to rely on them completely.
I had a punch list of things I needed to do before I moved to Linux for good:
* Read/Write NTFS ability
* Synch my Palm T|E / install software
* Configure WINE to run AceMoney
* Test USB thumb drive
* Test card reader
I have modified that list some:
* Ability to share data between HD's
* Ability to synch my Palm T|E and install Palm software
* Configure WINE to run AceMoney
* Find a good HTML editor
* Test USB drive
* Test card reader
* Import all of my data (bookmarks, e-mail addresses, e-mails, etc)
* Configure Analog for Linux to analyze my web logs
1) Ability to share data between the HD in different OS's - This has been a bit of trouble. I found a great program (Captive-NTFS) that will allow you to read and write to NTFS partitions (what my Windows HD's are formatted in) and I have been working with it for a few days. I realized last night that my Linux kernel is not at the version needed by Captive-NTFS. Since I am new to Linux, I do not want to compile the kernel needed (I want to wait for the official release for my distro, Ubuntu). Also writing to NTFS is a scary thing according to all the experts. Linux will read/write FAT32 partitions, but that is going to require a bit of work on my part. I will need to move the data from the partition I want to read/write, delete that partition, boot into Linux and format it to FAT32 (since the partition is bigger than 32 gigs, the max that Win XP can format), log back in to windows and assign it the proper drive letter, and then move all my data back. I am not sure I am up for all that. My Win XP machine is set up to have "My Documents" on the partition in question instead of the C drive. I did this to make sure the data and the OS were on two completely different HD's in case of disaster.
Option two is to simply wait for the Ubuntu developers to get to the newest kernel version out so I can start using Captive-NTFS. That may be a while and I would still be writing to NTFS, which is "scary"
Option three is to install a program that will allow Windows to read Linux partitions and then do part of option one. This is a pretty good idea because Linux partitions are almost completely immune to disk fragmentation. It is still a lot of work, but I think it would be worth it in the long run.
Option four requires me to get another HD to specifically use for my data. I would still install the software that allows Windows to read and write Linux partitions, so I could see the data from both sides. I would still need to log on to the machine to run updates. My wife is not comfortable with that.
2) Ability to synch my Palm T|E and install Palm software -- I still am not sure what software I want to synch with. Evolution is supposed to be pretty darn good, but I have not played with it yet. I tried to get the synch/conduits set up but it failed. I researched and found the source of my error but ran out of time so I could not complete my test. I need to be careful...I do not want to lose my PDA data!
3) Configure WINE to run AceMoney -- I have done this on my slow litter server and it worked very well. I am 99% sure it will work on my new setup.
4) Find a good HTML editor -- I only need a WYSIWYG editor once in a while. Most of the time I use the text based editor "HTML-Kit". It has been around a few years. It is an older product, but it does a great job. I may investigate using it under WINE as well. I will look around and see what text based Linux editors are available before I go that route.
5) Test USB drive -- My USB drive has worked on 3 of the 4 Linux boxes (2 laptops and 1 desktop) I tried. The only failure was on the little server I run. I am 90% sure it will work on the new install.
6) Test card reader -- It worked flawlessly. I popped in my Smart Media Card and it asked me if I wanted to import the photos on it. I told it "no" and it opened up the Nautilus to the correct folder. Sweet.
7) Import all of my data (bookmarks, e-mail addresses, e-mails, etc) -- I started with bookmarks and that was no problem. Getting my mail will be a bit more of a chore, but I think I can get it resolved easily. I have an IMAP mail account with 10 gig of storage. I think if I clean out the storage some, I can move the folders to the IMAP account and then they will be available "real time" no matter where I am. Not a bad idea, if my mail is less than 10 gig :-)
8) Configure Analog for Linux to analyze my web logs -- I have only used this on Windows. I have a good config file that I am happy with, so it should not be too much of a problem to do this in Linux. It is a command line tool. All I will need to do is make some minor changes to the script, I believe.
I think that covers it. I have Thunderbird for news and e-mail, Firefox with plugins for browsing, Open Office for documents, all the media players needed to play audio and video, and most of the utils I had to install on Windows (ftp client, ssh client, desktop widgets, GAIM, and compression tools) are already installed on the Linux distro I am using.
The data sharing item is the keystone or hinge pin that is the make or break on this project. I am sure I will get it all figured out eventually.
I will keep you posted.
I had a punch list of things I needed to do before I moved to Linux for good:
* Read/Write NTFS ability
* Synch my Palm T|E / install software
* Configure WINE to run AceMoney
* Test USB thumb drive
* Test card reader
I have modified that list some:
* Ability to share data between HD's
* Ability to synch my Palm T|E and install Palm software
* Configure WINE to run AceMoney
* Find a good HTML editor
* Test USB drive
* Test card reader
* Import all of my data (bookmarks, e-mail addresses, e-mails, etc)
* Configure Analog for Linux to analyze my web logs
1) Ability to share data between the HD in different OS's - This has been a bit of trouble. I found a great program (Captive-NTFS) that will allow you to read and write to NTFS partitions (what my Windows HD's are formatted in) and I have been working with it for a few days. I realized last night that my Linux kernel is not at the version needed by Captive-NTFS. Since I am new to Linux, I do not want to compile the kernel needed (I want to wait for the official release for my distro, Ubuntu). Also writing to NTFS is a scary thing according to all the experts. Linux will read/write FAT32 partitions, but that is going to require a bit of work on my part. I will need to move the data from the partition I want to read/write, delete that partition, boot into Linux and format it to FAT32 (since the partition is bigger than 32 gigs, the max that Win XP can format), log back in to windows and assign it the proper drive letter, and then move all my data back. I am not sure I am up for all that. My Win XP machine is set up to have "My Documents" on the partition in question instead of the C drive. I did this to make sure the data and the OS were on two completely different HD's in case of disaster.
Option two is to simply wait for the Ubuntu developers to get to the newest kernel version out so I can start using Captive-NTFS. That may be a while and I would still be writing to NTFS, which is "scary"
Option three is to install a program that will allow Windows to read Linux partitions and then do part of option one. This is a pretty good idea because Linux partitions are almost completely immune to disk fragmentation. It is still a lot of work, but I think it would be worth it in the long run.
Option four requires me to get another HD to specifically use for my data. I would still install the software that allows Windows to read and write Linux partitions, so I could see the data from both sides. I would still need to log on to the machine to run updates. My wife is not comfortable with that.
2) Ability to synch my Palm T|E and install Palm software -- I still am not sure what software I want to synch with. Evolution is supposed to be pretty darn good, but I have not played with it yet. I tried to get the synch/conduits set up but it failed. I researched and found the source of my error but ran out of time so I could not complete my test. I need to be careful...I do not want to lose my PDA data!
3) Configure WINE to run AceMoney -- I have done this on my slow litter server and it worked very well. I am 99% sure it will work on my new setup.
4) Find a good HTML editor -- I only need a WYSIWYG editor once in a while. Most of the time I use the text based editor "HTML-Kit". It has been around a few years. It is an older product, but it does a great job. I may investigate using it under WINE as well. I will look around and see what text based Linux editors are available before I go that route.
5) Test USB drive -- My USB drive has worked on 3 of the 4 Linux boxes (2 laptops and 1 desktop) I tried. The only failure was on the little server I run. I am 90% sure it will work on the new install.
6) Test card reader -- It worked flawlessly. I popped in my Smart Media Card and it asked me if I wanted to import the photos on it. I told it "no" and it opened up the Nautilus to the correct folder. Sweet.
7) Import all of my data (bookmarks, e-mail addresses, e-mails, etc) -- I started with bookmarks and that was no problem. Getting my mail will be a bit more of a chore, but I think I can get it resolved easily. I have an IMAP mail account with 10 gig of storage. I think if I clean out the storage some, I can move the folders to the IMAP account and then they will be available "real time" no matter where I am. Not a bad idea, if my mail is less than 10 gig :-)
8) Configure Analog for Linux to analyze my web logs -- I have only used this on Windows. I have a good config file that I am happy with, so it should not be too much of a problem to do this in Linux. It is a command line tool. All I will need to do is make some minor changes to the script, I believe.
I think that covers it. I have Thunderbird for news and e-mail, Firefox with plugins for browsing, Open Office for documents, all the media players needed to play audio and video, and most of the utils I had to install on Windows (ftp client, ssh client, desktop widgets, GAIM, and compression tools) are already installed on the Linux distro I am using.
The data sharing item is the keystone or hinge pin that is the make or break on this project. I am sure I will get it all figured out eventually.
I will keep you posted.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Game One of "The Game of the Year"
My young, energetic, and talented Tarheels lost 87-83 to their arch-rivals, Duke last night. This article explains it very well (Courtesy of Adam Lucas).
The Carolina-Duke rivalry is one of the most famous in NCAA basketball history. Home games draw a very large number of alumni back to the school to watch a true battle of titans. No matter how good or bad Duke or Carolina is in any particular season, the game never disappoints those looking for a life and death battle.
I have been a fan of the boys in baby blue for 15 years. Although I do not get to watch many games, I usually catch the play by play on the web. It is not as good as being there, but you get the feel for the game. I was not yelling as much as I do as when I actually get to watch the Heels play, but I was commenting none the less.
This was the first of 2 match-ups the Devil and the Heels will have in regular season play. The Heels hosted Duke at the Dean Smith Center (The Dean Dome) in Chapel Hill and the next will be at the sweatbox, Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham. The CIS has no A/C. Broadcasters hate that.
I tip my hat to the Heels. They went in outnumbered and outgunned and walked out a bit bloodied, but intact. They lost the game, but won a world of experience.
J.J. Redick, you played a pretty good game. I may despise you as a person, but I respect you as a player.
The Carolina-Duke rivalry is one of the most famous in NCAA basketball history. Home games draw a very large number of alumni back to the school to watch a true battle of titans. No matter how good or bad Duke or Carolina is in any particular season, the game never disappoints those looking for a life and death battle.
I have been a fan of the boys in baby blue for 15 years. Although I do not get to watch many games, I usually catch the play by play on the web. It is not as good as being there, but you get the feel for the game. I was not yelling as much as I do as when I actually get to watch the Heels play, but I was commenting none the less.
This was the first of 2 match-ups the Devil and the Heels will have in regular season play. The Heels hosted Duke at the Dean Smith Center (The Dean Dome) in Chapel Hill and the next will be at the sweatbox, Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham. The CIS has no A/C. Broadcasters hate that.
I tip my hat to the Heels. They went in outnumbered and outgunned and walked out a bit bloodied, but intact. They lost the game, but won a world of experience.
J.J. Redick, you played a pretty good game. I may despise you as a person, but I respect you as a player.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Computer Update
***Geek Warning***
Turn back now if you have no desire to read my comments regarding my latest PC adventure, or if tech talk makes your eyes glaze over...
I have been a Windows user for 14-15 years or so. I started with Windows 3.0 and upgrade to Win 3.1 a few months later. I did not have my own PC, but I borrowed my roommates while we shared an apartment and I had free use of one at my job at GTE Mobilnet. I graduated to Windows 95 shortly after it was released. I took the plunge and bought a P-120 with 32 megs of RAM and was in hog heaven for a while. Once I owned a PC, I took it upon myself to learn as much as I could about the hardware and the OS. Being self-taught means I made my share of mistakes, but nothing that I could not eventually recover from. It did not take me long to be very comfortable with Windows 95 and eventually Win 98, Win 98SE, Win ME, and Windows NT. I did not take the plunge into Windows 2000 until late 2002 for many reasons. I was getting rather tired of Windows and all the things that make it undesirable to me. We always had an extra PC in the house (usually an older one that I experimented on) and on many occasions, I would install some distribution of Linux (Redhat, SuSE, Debian, Mandrake) or some other operating system (BeOS) on it. No one OS stayed on the "sandbox" PC long. I usually borked it up and reloaded something else.
I eventually loaded Windows 2000 on our main PC (an old box, but it soon was upgraded) and played around with other OS's (SkyOS, Syllable, ReactOS, Lindows/Linspire, XandrOS, AROS) and some of the "live" Linux distros (Mepis, Knoppix). My fascination with other OS's was growing.
I finally upgraded our main PC to something with a bit more horsepower (Pentium 4 - 3 GHz, 512 RAM, 80 gig HD) than our old PC (Celeron 700 mhz, 256 RAM, 20 gig HD) and about a year after I upgraded, I bit the bullet and bought a *licensed* copy of Windows XP Professional. About the same time I did this, I wiped the sandbox (Celeron 400 mhz, 512 RAM, 10 gig HD) and installed a new Linux distro called Ubuntu. I was intrigued by this "user friendly" Linux distribution and wanted to learn more. I worked on it a bit every day, teaching myself more and more about Linux. I was beginning to like it. A lot.
Over the next couple of years, I upgraded Ubuntu to the latest version but continued to use our more powerful PC with Windows. I had a couple of hardware issues (the mobo died on me 2 months after the warranty expired) and installed some new hardware: router (the new one is wireless G), card reader (9 different types of cards), printer (HP photo), 160 gig SATA HD (to replace the 20 gig drive), mouse (new on is optical), speaker system (new one has a subwoofer), DVD-ROM (reader only), CD-ROM R/W (first one stopped writing) and a TV tuner card (which I broke by tilting the PC backwards too far and breaking the audio out connection).
I kept reading articles of people who gave up Windows to start using Linux. I was pretty sure that was not going to be possible (there is always something that you need a Windows box for, all my hard drives were NTFS and Linux will not write to NTFS), and my wife was not up to learning an new OS), but I wanted to use Linux as much as possible. The "sandbox" PC was not really powerful enough to do all that I wanted to do and it was pieced together with a lot of older, slower hardware. That made it less fun and more work. PC's are supposed to be fun.
I knew that dual-booting (the ability for a PC to load 2 different OS's) was possible, but the attempts I made in the past were not very successful. I then stumbled upon an article (on the Ubuntu Wiki) on how to dual boot Ubuntu painlessly. I read it an committed it to memory. I took the plunge. I dual-booted our fast PC with Linux and Windows.
I was nervous, but it worked. Most of my fears were alleviated when I booted the PC into Windows after I installed and did the basic Linux configuration. All the drive letters in Windows stayed the same, Windows booted just as it was supposed to, and nothing was lost.
I had a partition on /hda that was not being used, so what I did was boot windows, remove partition that I was not using (it was almost 40 gig, so it was big enough) and reboot. I inserted my Ubuntu CD and began the install process. Ubuntu saw that had Windows installed and configured GRUB to allow me to boot into Windows or Linux. I had to tweak the bootloader config file to tell it to boot Windows as the default (as not to confuse my beautiful wife), but other than that, everything worked as it was supposed to.
Ubuntu recognized my scanner (SANE is wonderful), both printers (both tested OK), my Logitech Quickcam (works in Camorama), and my SATA HD. I have not tested a few things yet like my card reader or my USB thumb drive, nor have I tried to synch my PDA with my Linux box. I have a lot of data and I do not want to lose it. One thing at time.
The major problem am having is writing to NTFS. All my data is on 2 partitions on the SATA HD which is formatted NTFS. I have installed a Linux program that is supposed to allow me to mount, read AND write NTFS partitions, but I have not been able to get it to work yet. I was rather tired and did not have as much time as I needed to do this properly.
I can read the data fine (I watched some of the recorded B5 episodes last night with Totem) I just do not know how to write to NTFS yet. Maybe this will be included in a future release or someone will make it easier to do.
Outside of those two things, I cannot see why I can't start using Linux as my primary OS. I will need to configure WINE to run the one small Windows program I use for finances, but I did that as a test on the sandbox and it worked very well.
Ok, my to do list so I can use Linux full time:
* Read/Write NTFS ability
* Synch my Palm T|3 / install software
* Configure WINE to run AceMoney
* Test USB thumb drive
* Test card reader
I think I have all the programs I need on Linux (all the software I need along with the OS is about 2 gig). The trick will be to learn them all. I did find that some of the wmv files I have do not have any audio and that may be troublesome (curse Billy boy and his proprietary formats). They work in Windows (duh) but no sound in Linux. Not all the wmv's, just a few.
OK, I am done rambling. I plan on spending the next few weeks tweaking. I will do this, eventually.
I Hope We Are Not Like That
I am sure that you have heard about the cartoonists who drew political cartoons that have greatly upset the Muslim population. When I first read about the incident, I said to myself, "Dangerous game you are playing...free speech or not". I knew it would not be received well, but I never thought it would have the effect it is having WORLDWIDE. Contests are being created in retaliation, threats of MURDER on ANYONE from a nation that has posted the offending cartoons, riots, hate mail, and the list goes on.
I sincerely hope that Christians never react that way. When TV networks create shows that mock Christian beliefs (The Book of Daniel, Will and Grace mocking the Crucifixion, etc), we get upset but we respond properly with cards, calls, letters, e-mails, and boycotts to resolve our grievances. I cannot imagine Jesse Jackson or James Dobson calling for Christians to butcher the TV executives the shows airs that offends us.
I cannot tell you how many times I have seen things on the web that mock Christianity and I have never once wanted to harm the person who posted those comments or opinions. Violence for the sake of religion is antiquated. It was wrong during the Crusades, it was wrong 20 years ago in Ireland, and it is wrong now.
I do not understand why it is okay for people to mock Christianity and not other religions. Each religion believes they are they only true path. Why should anyone be allowed to mock ANY religion? Keep your negative opinions in your own circle. Do not bring your biases and prejudices into my world.
We are thin-skinned and we do not like it when we get our feelings hurt. I know that when I get challenged about my faith, there are times it hurts. However, most of the time I just feel sorry that the person is ignorant enough to say the things that make them look stupid. I do not mind that you do not share my faith, but do not mock my God. I do not mock yours. I do not agree with your beliefs, but I will respect them. If everyone were to do this then we all might learn something.
I sincerely hope that Christians never react that way. When TV networks create shows that mock Christian beliefs (The Book of Daniel, Will and Grace mocking the Crucifixion, etc), we get upset but we respond properly with cards, calls, letters, e-mails, and boycotts to resolve our grievances. I cannot imagine Jesse Jackson or James Dobson calling for Christians to butcher the TV executives the shows airs that offends us.
I cannot tell you how many times I have seen things on the web that mock Christianity and I have never once wanted to harm the person who posted those comments or opinions. Violence for the sake of religion is antiquated. It was wrong during the Crusades, it was wrong 20 years ago in Ireland, and it is wrong now.
I do not understand why it is okay for people to mock Christianity and not other religions. Each religion believes they are they only true path. Why should anyone be allowed to mock ANY religion? Keep your negative opinions in your own circle. Do not bring your biases and prejudices into my world.
We are thin-skinned and we do not like it when we get our feelings hurt. I know that when I get challenged about my faith, there are times it hurts. However, most of the time I just feel sorry that the person is ignorant enough to say the things that make them look stupid. I do not mind that you do not share my faith, but do not mock my God. I do not mock yours. I do not agree with your beliefs, but I will respect them. If everyone were to do this then we all might learn something.
Friday, February 03, 2006
More Google Predictions
I saw this yesterday and found it to be a pretty entertaining read. Notice only one of the outcomes shows Google "crashing and burning". The other 3 show Google becoming "larger than life".
I will admit that the predictions are a bit overwhelming and far fetched, but they are entertaining none the less. I stated a while back that Google was becoming a threat to Microsoft but becoming more of a threat to you and me and our privacy. Do not get me wrong, I am not Google bashing, I am merely cautious about putting all my eggs in one basket. This is just a step towards George Orwell's "1984"...just 20 years later.
The whole thing reminds me of that Sylvester Stallone movie where he wakes up in the future and all the restaurants are Taco Bell...even the 5 star ones! Everything is Google:
"Honey, will you hand me the Google remote, please?"
"Let me Google it and then I will give you a Google later."
"Dear, the Google won't boot up."
"Yeah, I saw those losers screw up during the final play of the Google Bowl."
You get the idea :)
I will admit that the predictions are a bit overwhelming and far fetched, but they are entertaining none the less. I stated a while back that Google was becoming a threat to Microsoft but becoming more of a threat to you and me and our privacy. Do not get me wrong, I am not Google bashing, I am merely cautious about putting all my eggs in one basket. This is just a step towards George Orwell's "1984"...just 20 years later.
The whole thing reminds me of that Sylvester Stallone movie where he wakes up in the future and all the restaurants are Taco Bell...even the 5 star ones! Everything is Google:
"Honey, will you hand me the Google remote, please?"
"Let me Google it and then I will give you a Google later."
"Dear, the Google won't boot up."
"Yeah, I saw those losers screw up during the final play of the Google Bowl."
You get the idea :)
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Psychological Addictions and Mind Games
This morning as I was getting ready for work I made an interesting observation. I am psychologically addicted to my back brace. I know it may seem weird, but I am. While the brace is needed to some degree to keep my back straight so I heal properly and create good posture (after years of poor posture), I will not break if I fail to wear it. However, as I was going from the bedroom to the bathroom without my brace (I wear it all the time except for bathing), I felt a degree of anxiety surrounding the fact I was not wearing my protection. The amount of time needed to bathe when you have to be *very* careful in the shower is increased by about 50%. So my 15-20 minutes has turned into 23-30 minutes after the surgery. Those 23-30 minutes are scary when you THINK you need back support.
I suppose many people my age (or older) who have to wear a brace or cast for an extended amount of time could feel this way. I am sure kids do not suffer this as much because in their mind they are indestructible. I now realize I am a mortal and rather frail, all things considered.
I am being bombarded with some rather disturbing thoughts as of late. These thoughts are the result of 2 separate conversations I have had with 2 different people. If these conversations are to be trusted, I am pretty much "dead weight" in the department I am working in. While I normally do not put much value in hearsay, when it comes from 2 completely different people who are not in any way in contact with each other, the value goes up a bit. The core of this is true. I am very limited in what I can do in this department on a couple of levels. First, I am not a Unix guru and my boss knew that when I got here (although I think he failed to tell the TL that). That keeps me from doing what most of the other admins are doing. They have much more experience in UNIX (15+ years per admin) than I do and to add more problems, do not have the admin (known as "root" in Unixland) access needed to do even the simplest work. Second, I have just had back surgery and I cannot even do manual labor now. I am sure that is beginning to bother my boss. He was expecting me to build a couple of racks to ship to our R&D sites. I started them before I went on medical leave, but that was as far I as I got with that project.
I am not completely useless. I am helping a great deal in cleaning up some very sloppy ticket queues. I am reporting our performance, saving my boss and the TL from having to do it. It is not glamorous work, but I know how to do it. I also have been dispatching the tickets for our group. Not a hard job, but it is time consuming and frees up the admins to do the things I cannot do. I test the Linux builds the engineers are creating and I even made patch cables for the servers I was supposed to be building. My days are usually full...not much down time. I guess it looks like I have some free time since I posted twice today, but I can do this in between tickets and while the builds are loading.
I know that this is an attack from The Enemy. He loves to hit us when we are down. I also know that I can rise above this if I just pray about it. Lord, delivery me from these negative thoughts. I want to rise above all this.
I suppose many people my age (or older) who have to wear a brace or cast for an extended amount of time could feel this way. I am sure kids do not suffer this as much because in their mind they are indestructible. I now realize I am a mortal and rather frail, all things considered.
I am being bombarded with some rather disturbing thoughts as of late. These thoughts are the result of 2 separate conversations I have had with 2 different people. If these conversations are to be trusted, I am pretty much "dead weight" in the department I am working in. While I normally do not put much value in hearsay, when it comes from 2 completely different people who are not in any way in contact with each other, the value goes up a bit. The core of this is true. I am very limited in what I can do in this department on a couple of levels. First, I am not a Unix guru and my boss knew that when I got here (although I think he failed to tell the TL that). That keeps me from doing what most of the other admins are doing. They have much more experience in UNIX (15+ years per admin) than I do and to add more problems, do not have the admin (known as "root" in Unixland) access needed to do even the simplest work. Second, I have just had back surgery and I cannot even do manual labor now. I am sure that is beginning to bother my boss. He was expecting me to build a couple of racks to ship to our R&D sites. I started them before I went on medical leave, but that was as far I as I got with that project.
I am not completely useless. I am helping a great deal in cleaning up some very sloppy ticket queues. I am reporting our performance, saving my boss and the TL from having to do it. It is not glamorous work, but I know how to do it. I also have been dispatching the tickets for our group. Not a hard job, but it is time consuming and frees up the admins to do the things I cannot do. I test the Linux builds the engineers are creating and I even made patch cables for the servers I was supposed to be building. My days are usually full...not much down time. I guess it looks like I have some free time since I posted twice today, but I can do this in between tickets and while the builds are loading.
I know that this is an attack from The Enemy. He loves to hit us when we are down. I also know that I can rise above this if I just pray about it. Lord, delivery me from these negative thoughts. I want to rise above all this.
"Natural Lemon Flavor" and 8 Hours is a Long Time When You Are Sick
I would like to find the person who decided that TheraFlu has a "natural lemon flavor". In my life I have never tasted a lemon that was ANYTHING like what TheraFlu tastes like. TheraFlu has to be the nastiest tasting medicine I have ever taken, but to be honest, it does a pretty good job of keeping my running during the day...just about as good as Dayquil, only TheraFlu tastes worse.
We did not buy the TheraFlu, it was given to us by a rep of the company that makes it as a "gift" for helping the homeless on Thanksgiving day a couple of years ago. We put most of it in the church med kit, but a few of the families took some with them for emergency use. I took mine and put it in my desk drawer at work. I took the last one today. I will now have six hours of relief from some of my symptoms.
Why am I blogging this? I have a cold. Imagine having a small incision made in your lower back, damaged tissue and bone cut away, sew it up, be forced to wear a restricting back brace for at least 4 weeks (Remember, I just had back surgery) and having a cold. Coughing in my condition is not fun. Trust me. I really went out of my way to make sure I stayed away from people who were sick, but one on my Christian brothers failed to inform me that his entire family had been battling cold and flu for weeks as he gave me a hug, shook my hand, and told me that it was good to see me up and about. He did not mean to pass this on and I hold no grudges, but this is not fun. I am attempting to put in 8 hours a day at my job and I am barely making it. Yesterday my TL told me to go home because I looked tired. I was, but I had so much to do. I managed to get out about 15-20 minutes early (which was not really early, considering I worked through half my lunch and logged in early from home to pull and distribute a report. So I guess I really did not leave early after all.
Work, while not hard, has been demanding. I spent two hours yesterday making 20 cables for my boss to be used on a project I was working on before my surgery. I am not sure if it is a "crossover" cable or not. It is 8 pin RJ-45, with pin 1 matching with pin 1, pin 8 matching with pin 8, and the 2-7 matching with pins 7-2 (make sense?). I have never made cables before, so this was interesting. The crimping tool was not in great shape and it was murder stripping the wires with it.
Before that little adventure, I was asked, excuse me, told to run a report on our ticket activity for the month. My boss, a nice guy really, is rather demanding and wants the reports a bit more complex than our current tool allows, so I have to massage the data quite a bit to get it where he wants it. That took about 2 hours...1 hour longer than it should, IMHO.
The rest of the day was spent investigating tickets, creating a list of suggestions for my boss on how to improve our department, and testing the latest version of our Linux images for the R&D machines. The process is not as smooth as the last version, but I have been told this will get better.
Today I am battling an Exchange server that is not responding and finishing up the tests of the Linux images. I am not sure what else I will need to do for my boss, but I am sure he will keep me busy.
We did not buy the TheraFlu, it was given to us by a rep of the company that makes it as a "gift" for helping the homeless on Thanksgiving day a couple of years ago. We put most of it in the church med kit, but a few of the families took some with them for emergency use. I took mine and put it in my desk drawer at work. I took the last one today. I will now have six hours of relief from some of my symptoms.
Why am I blogging this? I have a cold. Imagine having a small incision made in your lower back, damaged tissue and bone cut away, sew it up, be forced to wear a restricting back brace for at least 4 weeks (Remember, I just had back surgery) and having a cold. Coughing in my condition is not fun. Trust me. I really went out of my way to make sure I stayed away from people who were sick, but one on my Christian brothers failed to inform me that his entire family had been battling cold and flu for weeks as he gave me a hug, shook my hand, and told me that it was good to see me up and about. He did not mean to pass this on and I hold no grudges, but this is not fun. I am attempting to put in 8 hours a day at my job and I am barely making it. Yesterday my TL told me to go home because I looked tired. I was, but I had so much to do. I managed to get out about 15-20 minutes early (which was not really early, considering I worked through half my lunch and logged in early from home to pull and distribute a report. So I guess I really did not leave early after all.
Work, while not hard, has been demanding. I spent two hours yesterday making 20 cables for my boss to be used on a project I was working on before my surgery. I am not sure if it is a "crossover" cable or not. It is 8 pin RJ-45, with pin 1 matching with pin 1, pin 8 matching with pin 8, and the 2-7 matching with pins 7-2 (make sense?). I have never made cables before, so this was interesting. The crimping tool was not in great shape and it was murder stripping the wires with it.
Before that little adventure, I was asked, excuse me, told to run a report on our ticket activity for the month. My boss, a nice guy really, is rather demanding and wants the reports a bit more complex than our current tool allows, so I have to massage the data quite a bit to get it where he wants it. That took about 2 hours...1 hour longer than it should, IMHO.
The rest of the day was spent investigating tickets, creating a list of suggestions for my boss on how to improve our department, and testing the latest version of our Linux images for the R&D machines. The process is not as smooth as the last version, but I have been told this will get better.
Today I am battling an Exchange server that is not responding and finishing up the tests of the Linux images. I am not sure what else I will need to do for my boss, but I am sure he will keep me busy.
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