The 7 Day Linux Diet

Relax and sleep - Android App

2012-01-28T05:36:00.001-08:00

I love this free ad-supported ambient sound mixer for Android.
I mainly use it on trains to block out annoying background noises. I am using it now because one of the doors on my grotty south east trains carriage is repeatedly trying to close itself -one of the most profoundly irritating noises known to man.

The app gives you a long list of samples each with their own volume slider for example birdsong, white noise, fog horn. I think you can select up to five at one go.

There is a timer that can either fade out (if you are using it to fall asleep at night) or sound an alarm if you are napping on a train journey and don't want to miss you station.

It's a great little number especially if you're a grumpy middle aged man who needs to control his blood pressure. The only niggles I have with it is when manually stopping it I have to uncheck each sound (probably is a switch just haven't found it yet) and some of the sound loops aren't very smooth. But it's a five star app in my book. Try it and happy snoozing

Sir Binbag Arises - Part Two

2009-07-11T12:35:00.000-07:00

Into The Labyrinth

I had thrown a lot at this Dell Dimension 2350 and it had reaped rewards. Spybot had been a star and I was surprised to read some reports that it wasn't what it used to be - it performed excellently straight from a USB stick. Although a lot of things brought improvement to its diseased body there were one or two things that made a radical difference - I think possibly that a defrag had also brought about a radical change but at some point a reboot brought a performance and display that excited me and I was soon on the home run.

This left me with a highly usable system but an underlying doubt that something nasty might be under the hood.

I was also confused about the "Genuine Windows" status of the OS. Updates were set to automatic by the previous owners. When I went to Windows updates I couldn't find anything in the update history to show the the Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) update had been applied - when scanning updates Windows told me it was missing update.

From the earliest time of looking at the files on the machine I saw the notes of a visit by a team called Geek Squad - there was a networking problem apparently, a lot of high falluting language in the report to impress the customer and the most bog standard solution of all - a clean reinstall. Could they have used the wrong media for that reinstall of the Operating System? Apparently PC repair men are roaming around with "generic" copies of XP and this can lead problems with the Windows Genuine Advantage validation process. Could a step in the validation process have been missed out by the all-singing all-dancing boys from Geek Squad? It certainly had some of the hallmarks of an invalid install - Windows Media Player(WMP) and Internet Explorer (IE) where not updated to versions 11 and 8 respectively and the WGA update was not on the PC.

It could be a computer savvy owner had made informed choices about this -updating to WMP11 and IE8 required positive choice I think and the one to IE8 had had some bad reports. But the owner deliberately avoiding WGA on purpose seemed improbable given the appalling malware-ridden condition he had left it in.

The mind-bending world of Microsoft licensing opened up before me*. I almost went certifiable over my Certificates of Authority (COA), my "full retails" and "wrong OEM re-installs"**. (One quick example - the COA on the side of the machine. Did it look genuine according to Windows online checker - well no, where was the hologram? And the number on the sticker didn't match the product key that Belarc Advisor was giving me. I emailed a friend asking him to photo his COA on an old Dell he had so I could compare -I guess he thought I was going to multiply his product key and ship it around the world as I didn't hear back from him. (The discrepancy with the Belarc reading of the product key and the one on the COA had an innocent explanation. Manufacturers get get bulk keys - they are different to the ones on the COAs - you use the one on the COA if you need to validate when reinstalling. The bulk key enables the manufacturers to validate loads of machines in one go).

You can read here about about the Dantesque torments of people who have purchased PCs from legimate vendors and have still ended up with the dreaded little pop-up telling you "Your copy of Windows is not genuine". This is the unchallengeable advantage Linux and other open source operating systems have over Microsoft (and I guess Apple too).

The simplest thing of course should be to go to the WGA program and install the update and then you would know where you stand - a related tool,the MGAdiag.exe tool, said it was a kosher set up anyway so why not dive in? But a part of me would want it to fail. If it failed I could purchase a Windows Genuine Advantage kit . I could then do a clean install without paying top dollar for a full licence (WGA offers cheaper licences) and any deeply hidden bogeymen would be wiped out. On the other hand was this machine worth any investment in software subsidised or not? I could end up with that awful nagulator - you can run XP ok but you get this little window that is truly irksome to someone like me who no longer wants to run anything but legit software. And if it didn't fail what then? Would I seriously pay for a new full licence for a machine that was already "genuine" just to ensure a theoretical piece of malware could be wiped out?

The 19in LCD I had bought for my little ASUS EEEPC when it was doubling as the living room pc had now become Binbags Display. And it was looking really nice - it was performing better than the "main computer" thanks to its betetr processor. And it was an Operating System that my partner R wasn't resistant to. Only my paranoia was spoiling the experience. My paranoia could only be dealt with by installing something from scratch - a KDE based Linux distro might be tolerated by R. I have a transferable (or at least I think it is - nothing is straightforward with MS licensing) copy of XP on the main machine perhaps I could use that and let Sanctum, my main pc, become fully Linux? Would I really want that - I've always had XP just one reboot away?

I had options but I was constrained by an unwillingness to spend money. Neither did I want to take risks with what was quite a convenient setup. I was in a bit of jam.

And then something occured to me....something that might just ease my thinking out of that jam. What it was would require Sir Binbag to get some new pieces of kit. It was to be a double-barrelled approach.

Join me as Sir Binbag rides forth.

* One licensing issue - you can transfer your licence to some one else - that is you can sell your machine or give it away to someone and the licence will go with the machine according to the licence info on the Dell Machine. Does finding it in a dump constitute a legitimate transfer? Also at other points it is argued that software has to be accompanied by the appropriate installation media - so is it or isn't it?

**this web page puts some of these issues a bit more succintly than me- I also got the COA image from the same site.

windows+seven dell xp recycling linux dimension+2350 licensing coa
spybot

Sir Binbag Arises Part One

2009-07-05T05:41:00.000-07:00

Out of the Darkness

A good few months ago R was picking her way through some rubbish tips and returned home with the base unit of a Dell Dimension 2350. I didn't know it was a 2350 and I hadn't named it as Binbag at that time.

There was some life in it but not much - it took a zillion years to boot and seemed unable to sustain its graphical interface for long. I was able to tell quite quickly that

1) It was running XP Home
2)Had multiple users
3)Had all those multiple users data
4)Was badly damaged in some way - either software or hardware or both.

After a few of these painful boots I thought that I would try and boot into a live Linux environment so I could root around the files. I inclined more to thinking it was malware related. Even when I couldn't open the CD Drive I thought it was malware (the previous owners were a family with a lot of teenage children - possibly a foster family). The bios was such that it couldn't boot from a USB drive either so I shelved the project hoping to salvage a few spare parts maybe when I had time.

I popped into Maplins and purchased their summer catalogue which inspired me to have another go at fixing Binbag. At the very least I could use the box and PSU and so on and build a new system up from there, motherboard and all.

I managed to boot into a reasonably usable Safe Mode after a few attempts as Administrator and ran dir/s/b in the command interface (cmd.exe). This listed every file on the C:\ Drive -there was a lot of music files in there. I was able to see that the C:\ drive was absolutely packed to the rim and maybe this was what was causing the problems. You're supposed to leave 20% free. After contemplating copying all this music I soon decided just to delete most of it all- there wasn't one artist I had heard off. I used cmd.exe again several times using del /s/b *.mp3 and del /s/b *.aac and all the other audio extensions I could think off. This deleted all the mp3s, aacs and so on. Cmd.exe is a very blunt but very powerful instrument.

It gave me a slight improvement in performance which allowed me to attach a flashdrive with HijackThis and Spybot. I was not knowledgeable enough to benefit from the HijackThis log but I could see problem areas. However Spybot performed admirably flagging up and fixing a whole bunch of scary looking Trojans. A much bigger improvement followed so I set about this anti-malware routine. I also went through Add/Remove Programs looking for anything that might have carried the malware (or be the malware). I cleansed the Temple.

One thing I grew to hate and one thing I liked - Macfee Security Suite (or don't know its proper name) I hated. It 's so vast and so all-consuming. It seemed hellbent on preventing me fixing the thing, for example sending me misleading messages when I used msconfig to remove unwanted startup programs. I wiped it out and installed Sunbelt Personal Firewall and AntiVir Anti-virus. Life got better.

Progress had been made. I will post my further struggles in due course including Microsoft licensing hell and its consequences.

windows+seven dell xp recycling linux dimension+2350 licensing coa

Return from the dead

2009-04-10T03:18:00.000-07:00

Thats nice SpeedTest has had a makeover.

There was a major outage in East London with Be - some third party destroyed one of the tunnels.

We are back on line now but I am wondering if this result is indicative of a problem? Its the first test I've done since the outage.

Being spending a lot of time with a found computer. It is Dell branded and the very handy Belarc advisor tells me it has a Dell Motherboard.

My conundrum is do I put it through Windows Genuine Advantage?

It has hotfixes but there is no Windows Defender and Media Player is version 10. It does have IE7 - but seing as it was practically dead from malware overdoses it is hard to know what is really what.

Another concern is the COA - it doesn't quite do what the MS site says it should do.

Otherwise I am very proud of my repair job (entirely software based - it will need a new CD drive which I intend to attempt next week).

wga anti-piracy dell malware coa

National Express WiFi

2008-08-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

Well I certainly like it.

It's kept me amused with little tweets through a rather irksome journey round the country.

national express train uk
wifi

Now that's better

2008-08-24T05:48:00.000-07:00

Virgin have apparently rolled out the 10 MB upgrade to 70% of customers so I expect it HASN'T got to Plumstead yet so. So I am definitely much better off without them. Virgin Media did send a bill which appears to state that they owe me money (much less than they do) but of course I haven't seen any refund yet. Thieves, no better than thieves.

broadband be unlimited virgin media

August Break-out

2008-08-14T01:00:00.000-07:00

Things seem to have picked up a bit - could it be that there is less competition with people being on holiday. Who are my noisy "neighbours" I wonder?

Although speed is disappointing on a theorectical level its has no major impact on a practical one. And of course upload is consistently higher and isn't throttled if you exceed limits.

broadband be unlimited virgin media

Lapsing

2008-08-04T01:18:00.001-07:00

What I mean by a linux diet is the belief that linux, or too much linux, is bad for you.

I was supposed to go on one just yesterday and did all right if it wasn't for the pesky ASUS Eeepc being so handy later on in the evening whilst slumped on the sofa.

And this morning I'm back on the big machine looking at f-spot again in forlorn search of a de-duping solution. Am I mad?

eeepc asus umpc laptop

No Soft spot for F-spot

2008-08-03T05:06:00.000-07:00

AAAARGH. It was right back to the early days for me when I tried to de-dupe the f-spot digital photo-manager. It actually bled anxiety into my day to day life - and its not as if I don't have enough going round at the moment.

Unlike Picasa F-spot has a problem re-duplicating files when uploading- and this is despite them all being ordered by date in folders which I thought would be a bit of a clue.

Anyway decided to use some of my hard earnt command line knowledge to sort it out. Ha - hubris followed by nemesis. I used a command like this

find ~/Photos -iname "*-[23456789].jpg -exec rm {} \;

to locate and remove duplicates (I had found out that was how the system accounted for them by tagging number on the end of the file eg 5678.jpg would have duplicates of 5678-1.jpg 5678-2.jpg et cetera. And yes I did have up to nine duplicates of the same picture.

This worked great - so now I just needed to get rid of the thumbnails. So I selected all and "refreshed thumbnails" assuming they would delete themselves when they saw there was no original file left.

No such luck and it just became very frustrating and actually stressful as I mentioned.

The support seems so meagre - I mean user comprehensible support - and all the classic anti linux arguments sounded in my head. (How can gnome make this the default digital photo program?).

So today I am back on my linux diet and sticking to windows. After all I actually have something TO DO today.

Ha! So there Linux!

PS I just middle-clicked to paste the tags and nothing happened - ha! Windows!

f-spot fspot gnome ubuntu duplicates digital photography software

Not even weekday evenings now

2008-07-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

More poor performance - the last point in the week was the middle bit - now it looks like the whole thing is thoroughly overloaded and rather mediocre looking.

Still not thinking TOO much about jumping back with Virgin. Virgin are scum after all.

broadband be unlimited virgin media

Office Hours Go Slow

2008-07-18T00:58:00.000-07:00

That seems to be the problem - its just coming up to 9.00am and the connection is completely drained.

So as it stands a 24 mb service is delivering about 6.5 on weekday evenings and 1.5 the rest of the time. The connection at least is not dropping out frequently and upload times remain high.

broadband be unlimited virgin media

Worse then better

2008-07-13T16:42:00.000-07:00

I did watch an iplayer prog without any problems - then tried one around midnight and was annoyed to see it cut out two times in a row. I saw that Wifi had disconnected on my eeepc so stuck a cable in almost immediately reconnecting and then that cut out too.

I unplugged/replugged the BeBox (the sum of Virgins technical help) and hey presto it started working again. I found myself downloading a few test files and then went to speedtest above and things have got back to normal - surely that can't just be the weekend hit? Or was something else going on? Funny that unplugging got things back on track again and there had been so some series of disconnects that weren't just local wifi problems.

broadband be unlimited virgin media

Slow on Sunday

2008-07-13T14:34:00.001-07:00

Urgh...

broadband be unlimited virgin media

More woe?

2008-07-12T00:02:00.000-07:00

Its only just 8 in the morning? Who's doing what at this time to make things so slow?

The Be site did flag up that they had problems with their helpline - perhaps there are network issues generally.

broadband be unlimited virgin media

Virgin is appealing

2008-07-11T13:41:00.000-07:00

Well I briefly thought that when I saw this speed...is Friday night really such a heavy time?

Maybe I should just be satisfied with less - Virgin are pretty incompetent and their attitude is very poor - Phorm is the defining point of all that's bad about them. They have no respect for their customer's property. And I seem to remember Sundays being a bit rubbish so cable is no cure all.

When I think about it this speed far exceeds anything I got with Plusnet - at least as far as I can remember - it seems so long ago now.

Oh yeah - Virgin are supposed to be paying me a cheque for the money they owe...like where is it?

broadband be unlimited virgin media phorm

worst fear

2008-07-08T03:33:00.000-07:00

The reply came
Ticket reference number: 1176620

Dear Erik As we checked your line length is 3.6 km and the speed that you are getting is normal for this line length. Regards, Pavel

If there is anything else you would like to discuss, please don't hesitate to call us at any time on ......

I am not quite sure how they got the 3.6km though. My google maps gives me something like 1.7km - you have to multiply it up to take account of bends in the line etc but not by 200% normally.

It's still better than what I was receiving - however Virgin cable will be rolling out 10mb.

There are a few options and no rush - that's the great thing about a three month contract.

broadband be unlimited virgin media

Ticket raised

2008-07-08T03:12:00.000-07:00

I took my stats according to Be's instructions and raised a ticket late-ish last night.

I got an SMS telling me I had a reply from them this morning. I checked my email on the train to Darlington (National Express are offering free wifi at the moment which is really neat).

It was a "your query is being handled" email".

I am a bit gloomy about the prospect of higher speeds TBH.
The more I learn about attenuation rates the less likely I will get better than the seven odd I have now. Another SMS has arrived - perhaps its a fuller response.

I'm off to check.

Sunday Awakening

2008-07-06T04:56:00.000-07:00

Clearly a bit more sprightly - this is using my wifi near the BeBox on the asus (blossom).

Be's not buzzing

2008-07-05T09:49:00.000-07:00

Well -- what is going on?

I think I will be unscrewing the faceplate tonight to check things directly from the test socket.

Whatever it is the variations in speed cannot be attributed to the local end of the connection.

broadband be unlimited virgin media

Mornings reading

2008-07-04T01:08:00.000-07:00

Not long now before I put in a ticket to Be. Wifi seemed to drop out briefly when I moved the Asus slightly. Normally able to move around ok.

broadband be unlimited virgin media

Sleepy in the morning

2008-07-03T00:42:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a dramatic drop in speed in the mornings...is this due to heavier traffic?

Virgin looked like they had badly messed up their latest bill. It still thinks I am with them (for telephone services at the least).

First customer service call was the typical cliched pure rubbish from beginning to end. Some man in India who kept telling me I still had a virgin phone line. He offered to waive the 42p the bill said I owed him. He didn't grasp the concept that Virgin owed me for services that were charged for on a partial month basis. He said a supervisor would call me in an hour which he didn't. I genuinely considered the possibility that I had got through to the janitor by mistake and he was just trying to busk it rather than appear rude. Awful.

I tried again and spoke to a stern Scottish woman who acknowledged I had left Virgin AND that they owed me some money. Not enough money by my calculation but at least the call made some kind of sense. Would I really accept those kinds of standard for more consistent speeds? Maybe.

I will look at the speed issue in earnest next week sometime.

broadband be unlimited virgin media

Speed loss

2008-06-30T00:51:00.000-07:00

I understand that the router has to probe its connection to get the best speed.

It could that theat accounts for the lower speed recorded today at 08.53.

Or is it a traffic issue with all the businesses going online?

I can't think it's that - this is the Woolwich Exchange after all.

Be Unlimited broadband

Changed ISP

2008-06-28T03:19:00.000-07:00

I have left Virgin Media (VM) and opted for Be Unlimited. What I am getting is better than Virgin in terms of speed so far but obviously isn't touching the 11mb or so I was hoping for.

Virgin were promising free speed upgrades from 4mb and 10mb but they announced this at the turn of the year and still it hasn't materialised. The retention gorilla kept stating that I did have 10mb and it is that kind of attitude I am glad to have put behind me.

I will look at increasing speed - special faceplates are all the rage on the Be Forums - if I don't like it I will either drop to a 12 month 8mb max or switch to an O2 package (it's the same network - I would have to give three months notice and send back the Be Box). I am currently on a relaxing 3 months notice contract - so relaxing it is probably worth the little extra despite the 7Mb/s maximum I am getting now. The upload speed is amazingly good compared to Virgin. And of course there is no traffic calming. I only might have got close to it once with VM but the download allowance before they reduced your speed was fairly stingy. So loads of iPlayer stuff when I am in Windows. Hurrah!

And then of course there is Phorm - the evil Phorm that VM are too pig-headed to act swiftly on.

Hopefully things will improve with them - its not impossible I will back with VM. But that's for the future now. possibly the very distant future.

Loving the service from Be so far.

Oh yeah and Hardy Heron is great fun too.

Hardy Heron ubuntu Virgin Media Be Unlimited Phorm broadband

2008-06-08T12:21:00.000-07:00

I have been trying the latest version of Ubuntu recently (hardy Heron 8.04 LTS). I did a fresh install as usual some things that worked in the earlier version don't work quite as well in the new version. F-spot that has always had problems on this machine have had more problems with the new OS. It can't "slide-show" - it just gets a blank screen. Full screen mode works but you cannot exit from it without it crashing. It crashes with other odd procedures it nearly always crashes/closes after an import- I have noticed that the tag items drag and drop is much better though.

i have installed picasa as a backup up but will persevere with F-spot for a bit longer - it is open source after all and should be favoured.

Overall I like the polish of Hardy - it is the best looking out of the box. It seemed that the borders were too big at first (black ones on the monitor) and I have had trouble getting it 100% perfect. When it was originally installed it opted for a lower res - normally Ubuntu gets it right first time.

Firefox 3.0b is the browser and very nice - am I missing something or is quick find not supposed to be there any more?

hardy heron f-spot ubuntu

Ignore these scribbles

2008-04-12T03:38:00.000-07:00

i really like grapes.
No what I mean is I really like grapes.

the history of liking grapes goes back a long way indeed to the very dawn of time.
the history of liking grapes goes back a long way indeed to the very dawn of time.
the history of liking grapes goes back a long way indeed to the very dawn of time.

Here is a link to the BBC

The Asus Blog on the Move Challenge

2008-03-11T06:40:00.000-07:00

Ok – here I am on the morning train looking suitably moronic in my pretend railwayman's outfit. This image was snapped using the eeepc's onboard webcam. Took a second or two to take and save the image (the first time I have taken one with this particular machine- the ToysRUs demonstration model in the Old Kent Rd so I had had a tiny bit of practice a month or so back).

Stepping back a bit – the purpose of the challenge is to produce a blog post using the Asus eeepc and for added spice to begin and end it away from from home connection an workspace. A concern i have had is that my messy blunderbuss approach to getting all the components together will be more difficult with the small screen and to a much lesser extent the lack of conventional desktop.

This text is being written using the OpenOffice Writer software – the spell check is holding up ok. At home I would probably start with a text editor but the hope is I can save some time with the formatting when I get to upload this at the wifi cafe at lunchtime.

At home I would be connected to the internet throughout the whole process breaking off from the writing to hunt out an image or other link. I can't do that here obviously.

So now I am at the Wifi cafe and all was going well. I uploaded the picture above from the SSD and then pasted my text from Writer into the "Compose" field in Blogger and then I couldn't get an insert point to appear! (Why is that exclamation mark in bold?) I had to switch to the html view and do it there then switch back so it's all working.

Right now lets find something relevant on Flickr. How about this?

Now lets have some technorati tags - (I always have to look this code up and then paste into a text editor. On the eeepc you have several. I use the terminal to launch kwrite. The taskbar is very crowded now. Hard to make out what is what.). That will complete things here just need to post it and linkto it from my main blog.

eeepc railwayman waterloo

Waterloo Flat

2008-01-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

Eee that's grand

2008-01-07T12:00:00.000-08:00

Ha...does Linux actually need us - by us I mean the mere humanoid users? Sometimes it seems not. I thought I'd log into Ubuntu and the good ol' fsck did its "automatic run every 30 boots" routine.

R momentarily distracts me I deal with her swiftly and walk back into the room and the XP logon screen is sitting there throbbing at me. I forgot the darn thing rebooted as well so with my grub set-up it went straight to XP. So here I am writing this and playing around with XP again - cleaning up my e-Music remote install before hunting out some music. However I have been doing a bit more booting into Linux after one of my brief "linux diets".

What inspired to give up my highly valued stress cells to Linux again?- a sweet little thing called the ASUS Eee. I don't own one but it certainly grabbed my, and a lot of other people's attention. It also grabbed my imagination. Could this Internet appliance market be little linux's best chance? Not only that but did it denote benefits to the wider OSS community by way of hardware compatibility and web services for all platforms? Let's hope so. Will there be more Emusic's?

E-music is one of those services that truly works at being cross-platform. The Linux install was pretty good for me once I had dug out the right commands and it has worked really well. I haven't worked out how to move the default location for the downloaded files folder (called My Emusic in unnecessarily window-esque fashion) yet and sometimes the window doesn't open properly and you have to drag it to a manageable size but overall it was pretty painless (in truth less painful than the Windows install - this confused me at the install options stage). So hats off to Emusic.

Of course there is the issue that MP3 is a proprietary format rather than open source so none of these files would play on a default install of Ubuntu. But that's another story.

linux asus eeepc ubuntu

2007-11-29T15:19:00.000-08:00

Ah-ha! I am having a brief return to Linux. I have found myself less inclined to boot into it for the last week or so. My Gutsy Gibbon boots quicker than the XP and Firefox, my preferrred browser on both platforms, loads a lot faster too. i can get going a whole lot quicker (possibly two whole minutes) with Ubuntu. It looks better and my media set-up is fairly inclusive. Apple's site was abit sniffy about letting me watch their promotional videos. idid manage to watch the Mac and PC skits ok but it decided all of a sudden that I was an OSX Leopard and needed Quick Tunes. perhaps they should do a skit where mac can't tell the difference between himself and an obviously different Linux character.

The reason I was visiting the Apple site was because I had found myself fantasiing about owning an iPhone - because Mac is such an awful snob Jobs and Mr O2 will have to forgo my wad of cash.

So why my floundering interest in Linux? is it crapping out on me again? No -not in the least. It has been performing well-grub has held out without any of the problems I had when I first started. I have suscribed to eMusic and their seervice is great because it all works really well on Gutsy. OK I've lost the ability to listen to BBC streams (and Resonancefm is abit flakey too) but pandora and musicovery work as well as on XP.

I think though it has improved it is hard to say it is better than XP overall. Linux has worked well because apart from eMusic remote every installed app is an approved package and I have used nothing like automatix to get other apps and media codecs. Ihave just used the most official routes to do things. XP however is stuffed with all sorts of odds and sods all of which work well (and are easy to learn and which run well). It has paid -for, freeware and opensource software all rubbing along together nicely. Any website or webservice will work with it (unless its got malicios intent). I can use the dreadful BBC iPlayer if I want. I can use the Napster subscriptiuon service if I want. I can install neat little utilitis like Piky basket - and it won't blow up my machine and can be installed in my sleep.

It gets longer to get going to be sure - but chugs along nicely (and generally looks a bit brighter and clearer) when it gets going. Even the incessant AVG updates are worth it for its mixture of reliabilty and flexibility.

(Oh yes - I enjoyed writing this in a VT using Vim with Gutsy Gibbon. That's certainly something I can't emulate on XP very easily.)

Well thats todays thought on the whole subject.

test vim format

2007-11-26T16:10:00.000-08:00

When on, lines longer than the width of the window will wrap and displaying continues on the next line. When off lines will not wrap and only part of long lines will be displayed. When the cursor is moved to a part that is not shown, the screen will scroll horizontally.

Having more fun with Vimperator

2007-10-11T14:17:00.000-07:00

Than I would have thought humanly possible.

It clashes with an extension though...any guesses which one?

Yep. BlueOrganiser.

I am not in the mood to tell them - I've told the main Vimperator developer.

A quick resume of Vimperator.

It is an extension that enables you to use Firefox without the mouse /considerably less mouse.

It is not only a useful keyboard shortcut app...it is built around the vi(m) text editor and the various shortcuts that come with it.

It does help if you have learnt about vim a bit - this obviously will limit its appeal.

Even my Open Source Guru nephew thinks vim is too hard core .

But perhaps all those clever little ways of navigating around an old black screen terminal have found a new purpose in life. Setting Marks on your urls during your session -kind of quick temporary bookmarks that you can access by typing a few characters- and the Quick Hinting option (places a 2 character sequence by each link on page) seem ideal for the modern multilinking web. I tried the latter on Flickr last night and it was great cruising around swiftly without the mouse.

The directional HJKL keys are also a lot more comfy than the official arrow keys -though you can use them too. In fact you can use just about any normal or site specific keyboard shortcut if you "escape all keys" with .

If you have a bit of time -and can enter an experimental frame of mind- and you're looking for a reason to use that Firefox browser again you should try Vimperator.

Vicarious gratification

2007-10-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

I have been visualising all the expenditure on the house in terms of MacBook floating past my eyes. About a dozen so far...but I still need feel the urge for some IT shopping therapy. This is just about within my meagre remaining budget.

2007-09-28T05:10:00.000-07:00

So...I do need to save it. The one that gave me the Rats error message is now working. So presumably I do have the option of editing where things point to. I'll experiment at bit with that later. I'll stick an erik-experiment tag in to the Smartlink.

Edit - ah no. barking up the wrong tree.

A conclusion is that needs to a space/folder within the Bluemarks that I can use just to store my Smartlinks in - a lot of them on my main blog are fairly inconsequential to me and if I am to use the sidebar for personal bookmarking it will get very cluttered over there. There needs to be a link view and a bookmark view.

perhaps I am making daft judgments here - perhaps I can delete the links and the smart windows will open after a period.

I'll look into it later- I am off to the real world now.

OK getting there

2007-09-28T05:06:00.000-07:00

Their video mentioned title editing lets give it a bash - Me editing the title to my hearts content hooray!

So here we go

2007-09-28T05:00:00.000-07:00

So I have now saved the bluemark (the auto-filing system was a problem - I couldn't find it and thought it hadn't saved and deactivated no-script - then I found it in blogs. Certainly a correct assignment of object to folder but it takes a bit of getting used). And here is the link will it work exactly as generated? The Clipmarks “Clipiversity”

Now what

2007-09-28T04:50:00.000-07:00

The smartlink appears but it leads to nothing - it has a polite apology so it looks like something at their end. Interesting. What I do like though is there is nice flyover explaining what the square is - I was abit worried about clicking expecting a straight link and seemingly getting bamboozled by a pop up that they might just see as an advert rather than a utility.

Edit - I just checked the Sunshine link below and it was working so possibly it is an html issue. I am going to "bluemark" it now - the first time I didn't save to my own bluemarks but just generated and copied the link (I didn't want it in my bluemarks I just wanted the smartlink is the scenario I was creating).

The problem with the earlier post

2007-09-28T04:47:00.000-07:00

I normally use a linking word that is different to the link title given to it by the Smartlink. So I have to write The Clipmarks “Clipiversity” instead of writing"one" or whatever as in my last post

Extension to extension

2007-09-28T04:40:00.000-07:00

here's me using one extension to point to another one (though clipmarks works on Internet explorer and Flock too). The link is to the vlog that discusses popular clips on clipmarks - an idea that worked well with digg I seem to recall).

Smokers and non-smokers agree: Bans are okay in public places

2007-09-25T13:11:00.001-07:00

i know it belongs on the other one...just I'd test the customisation options thats all.

clipped from www.synovate.com

Smokers and non-smokers agree: Bans are okay in public places

Smokers also willing to pay price for tobacco-friendly flights

As smoking bans continue to make headlines in Germany, Australia and the UK, findings from international market research firm Synovate's latest survey show that 80% of respondents in 15 countries across the globe are in favour of such bans, primarily because of the positive influence these are perceived to have upon public health.

Smoking bans win global support

More than 70% of people believe that smoking in public is fine as long as there is adequate ventilation or designated smoking spaces, according to the Synovate study.

Read more

Well why not?

2007-09-25T12:58:00.001-07:00

Why not stick up this from Clipmarks? Going on! Why not?

clipped from www.preteristarchive.com

"There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship."

"It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes."

His books are quite incomprehensible to most mortals. Fortunately, there are many books written to explain Thomas's books. Unfortunately, anyone who understands Thomas immediately becomes incomprehensible as well, so they don't get us very far.

he looked even more distracted and overawed than normal. The monks asked him if he was all right,

Thomas continued in this state for a worryingly long time. In the end they suggested he go back to his cell and get on with that book they were eagerly awaiting the next volume of.

'Oh no,' he said. 'I've met God. That's just a big pile of straw.'

And sure enough, he didn't write another word of theology for the rest of his life. (Although, admittedly, that wasn't especially long, because he died in a freak donkey-riding accident the following year.)

Second attempt at smart link

2007-09-23T06:07:00.000-07:00

And yes I did like this slow moving loses its way slightly movie. Its called Sunshine

Smartlinks

2007-09-23T05:50:00.000-07:00

I have been playing with adaptiveblue's extension BlueOrganiser - I thought i would try and smartlink my most recent favourite movie Sunshine

Windows problem

2007-09-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

kept getting an error in IE7 about Skype - it would crash my IE7 session. It was pretty easy to disable in the Add-ons menu but it is the kind of thing that happens a lot in XP. Because keep wanting to set things up for you. Virgin shoved loads of stuff at me -changed the outlook express settings that I had espicially set up exclusively for R. tha really pissed me off. In ubuntu the connect was just automatic - no rubbish was bunged onto my setup. I installed skype for a very rare internet phone chat that I organised with orangejon. It apparently added something to IE7 that I've now disabled. My new HP printer was more of the same - though I do feel happier having some of the crap there. In otherwords the crap isn't all crap. the choices and controls in Ubuntu are abit limited - but on the other hand it was nearly effortless to set up. there are more advanced soptions (checking ink-levels) but I am not entirely sure how to get there (it might only be partially supported though I chose HP because I knew it was well supported - I didn't check an exact model however. Anyway as I am dual booting I can use the other features in XP. I am happy enough being able to switch between normal and economy printeing of basic docs and web pages.

linux failure

2007-09-13T09:18:00.000-07:00

- I took a digital camera movie of me releasing the mouse
(http://erik-fuller.blogspot.com) from its humane trap. The thought occurred that I should
upload it to Youtube immediately then embed in my blog post on the matter.
get to linux and of course I can't view it because its a .mov file. Totem promises to
search for a solution and then says its impossible.
What do I do. if there was only one .mov I could have uploaded it blinded. However there
were two and the date wasn't set so they were both made on Jan 01 2005 - I would have to
upload both even though I wasn't sure what the other was.
I gave up and had to reboot windows. AVG took an age as it does now (because I'm using XP
less than I normally do) and I wrote this note whilst it sorted itself. To add insult to injury i used IE7 because I knew it would load quicker and not eat my CPU or anything daft like FF sometimes does. I didn't want any more delays.
So whose fault - Mr Apple or Mr Kodak? Probably both and probably others - bottomline was I
couldn't do this one task in the way I wanted to. (I could have uploaded to a recoding site
- but would audio sync etc...and how much more time would that involve. the moment is
pretty much lost and this is due to me having Linux open when I got home instead of XP.

Vim for Firefox

2007-09-09T13:26:00.000-07:00

Its absolutely nuts but I love it - someone has brought out an extension that makes Firefox behave like Vim. Why you ask? Why would anyone use Vim as an editor let alone get a browser to act the same? I don't know - but I do know I like it. Its so perverse for an old Windows user like me to grapple with this but there you are. (Written in Vim in console mode on XP).

You can find it here.

PS - I also like the fact that some other extension does the middle click paste thing in firefox for XP.

A little learning can be...

2007-08-26T03:31:00.000-07:00

Commuting in the other day there were three girls discussing an acquaintance's welfare. They were a bit incredulous about the bruise on her cheek being caused by a kiss from her boyfriend. Apparently this had been a very unlucky young lady who had had a string of bad'uns as boyfriends. The three girls briefly speculated one why that should be. "I reckon its because she got good gcse's" one of them stated authoritatively.
~

Another Mini-Holiday

2007-08-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

Me I am so changeable I am. Last night I really really preferred booting into Linux even though that involves all the fiddling around with Super Grub Disk.

Tonight I can't be arsed with Gnu/Linux.

Maybe its because I discovered my Cygwin install can do more terminal stuff than I originally thought and I do love, in an obsessional sudoku kind of way, love playing around with the command line if only at a simple level.

Or maybe its 'cause my strong association of XP with productivity and straightforwardness. A man cannot serve two masters as he will love one and hate the other. And that will switch on a daily basis. But no OS should be my master.

So Gates it is tonight. (with a little smattering of Linus later?)

2007-07-28T11:02:00.000-07:00

Why doesn't Opera under Ubuntu work properly? I write one post on my proper blog and the text unwraps itself half way through, I get funny behaviour at login and just a moment ago it crashed simply being on this page (not quite I was trying to locate the screenprint tool). Weird. But it is looking lovely and the RSS and Bitorrent seem to be working fine. I particularly like this Vista-esque skin lix-1_5 it is called (apparently).

Lets hope for steady improvements all round with Ubuntu and OSS in general. (Not that Opera is OSS of course...naughty me).

2007-06-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

I've not been able to get to my ubuntu for a fair while.

I use Super Grub Disk to boot it rather than have grub on the MBR.

But here I am posting this with Ubuntu and its not a Live CD session.

I had considered doing a reinstall when I first hit the "corrupt superblock" problem but as we were in the middle of buying a house I gave it a miss.

When I was in the house I had plenty of excuses to sort out the computer rather than pull off wallpaper and so on ( the house is a building site).

I stuck in
Knoppix and opted to go to non graphic mode - I was looking for a few files on the ubuntu system. knoppix told me to run ext2fsck before mounting - i did and it fixed it.

Marvellous.

2007-04-09T13:15:00.000-07:00

And a few installs later...as i wrote on my main blog it is a year since I gave I smoking. Linux has been a great aid...giving me something to do though my gf isn't too impressed with the time I spend on it.

It has a times been a right royal pain. i have just come out of another no-linux-please period but have succumbed again. I thought I would be daring and install opensuse10.2 but it got tetchy during install so back to ubuntu though I have stuck Kubuntu in there to give a bit of variety. its now got the whole of the second disk-the reason being is windows was getting shirty with it. I suspect the drive must be dodgy - some of the grub problems I have had could have been due to dodginess. Anyway its now a dedicated linux experiment disk. At the very least it has stopped stopped chkdsk fretting everytime XP tries to boot.

And it has few practical tools with it I guess.

have yet to be arsed installing codecs etc...automatix doesn't like Kubuntu much satys some icons are incompatible or something.

2007-02-25T14:55:00.000-08:00

Got round to a reinstall of edgy the other day - was getting really annoyed with whatever was screwing up all the programs such as liferea deskbar etc...

But now I have a home folder at /home/myname AND the old home folder at /home/home/myname.

A tad confusing. have managed to get a few settings to work for evolution and firefox though the attempt to transfer the eamail accounts didn't work as far as I can see.

Firefox was easy just copying over the ./.mozilla folder. Tomboy was a bit more fiddly but got there in the end.

2007-01-28T15:39:00.000-08:00

More trouble at the Linux Mill- seemed to be the same king of thing.

Programs seemed to stop working I went into a a virtual terminal and started getting weird error messages. I rebooted the system grub was a bit slow off the mark which is always worrying.

I tried going into normal boot but I got a strange console. I switched off at the box and started again opting to go into recovery mode. Same story as before - I had to run fsck manually (can't use -p and -a options).

Did lots of tapping yes wondering whether it was all worth it. And finally I tapped my last yes and I had a successful session so maybe it is fixed after all. Don't know if it really is and if it is I don't know how or why.

Twice in one day - a real bummer.

Will it won't it?

2007-01-28T05:38:00.000-08:00

Is it back to the bad old days with the filesytem going really cranky?

Had a bad crash today. Bit ridiculous because I was only using gnome-terminal.

(I had done some other stuff- I had used gdeskbar which in turn
had opened firefox and beagle-searched the word diet. I am not entirely sure why
firefox was launched but for whatever reason it did it and I moved on to another virtual desktop
to practice the bash tricks I was reading about.)

I was reading some instructions on how to edit commands you can recall from history via
search history keys Ctrl-R. For some reason it wouldn't amend the bit I wanted it just crashed.- nothing would work I had to reboot from the box. I booted back into recovery mode and manually ran fsck after it had done a bit of its own stuff.

It then said reboot now so I entered reboot but it got stuck. I sought out some help
so tried reboot -h which turned out to be the magic command and it got
going again. How long have I been using it? Two months or something - it
was running really smoooth then throws that at the user. It fixed
itself fine -loads of stuff about inides I Had to type y a lot- I was hoping it would get better but another part of my brain was
asking "am I going to have to backup and reinstall again?" That would be really
annoying if it was my only box. I can imagine how a total newbie would feel - in fact I can remember the horror easily. After all its not that long ago.

gdeskbar gnome linux

Vim

2007-01-23T15:23:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned that part of my Linuxification of XP involved installed the Windows version of vim. I think I have it installed at least twice because it appears in Cygwin too (the ultimate Linuxification...it is the Unix shell emulator)Essentially the whole thing is a bit nuts. It's a text editor that uses various modes - you go into one mode to write your text and another to do your editing. This frees up the keyboard so that a whole stream of short editing commands can be brought into use.

Vim-users love to talk of its power and I can see the potential but the draw back is remebering the various commands...you've also got to be a bit aware of whether the Caps lock has been hit or it will start acting rather strangely. I type away happily and all of a sudden find that something is "recording" or the cursor is jumping off somewhere and the text simply isn't appearing

It is getting a bit more easy to use. It certainly makes a change from Notepad. A long time ago I got into Notetab Lite - that also had a load of features but I never bothered to read them and its true editors are really a programmers tyope of thing. But I still like the speed of loading, amongst other things, that you get with text editors.

(I wrote this in Vim and had a bit of trouble trying to work out my commands to get into onto a clipboard to paste into blogger...got there in the end obviously)

2007-01-06T14:34:00.000-08:00

A couple of things that helped with dual booting. One is the firefox del.icio.us extension. I can bookmark in either OS and can simply open firefox in either system to look at the same bookmarks. If course I can also add to them from IE7 using the normal del.icio.us buttons. At work I aahve to get IE^ to point at the del.icio.us homepage and log in and post manually. Bit long winded but nice interconnectivity going on their. I think they are on the Yahoo side of the divide.

Meanwhile google has grabbed Blogger.

The other co-habitation app is Ext2 IFS. It allows windows to have (almost) full read write access to my Ubuntu partition. This is really good. I can even use it to edit system files so it is better than having a shared FAT32 partition.

Today I created a text file with details of the football game I was going to. The printer wasn't working (haven't set it up so I rebooted into xp and opend the file with Notepad (I have the windows Vim so I could have used that)and printed from XP no problems at all. I could even download directly to Linux ifand in fact have done. (Seem to have better codec support in linux alternatively have some problems with certain files in Linux and can just open them with windows apps. great little bit of open source and very easy to use/set up.

2007-01-01T12:20:00.000-08:00

Something that is irritating me is copy and paste in gnome (or it it gnu/linux as a whole?)

When i am doing one of my links on verbal diary it really irks if I try to do it with the mouse.

This link for example. I highlighted "this" a dialogue opens with a field to place the link in. When it opens it is preset to show http:// (which is blogger) and a small "newspaper icon" appears by the cursor and follows it around. I assume it must be a clipboard containing "this" (with linux highlighting puts the text on the clipboard - there is no need to right-click and choose copy). I try to get rid of http: (I am pasting the whole address ie "http://s67.photobucket.com/albums/h293/ecf1691/th_google_paste_search.png"...if I don't get rid of the http I will get http://http://s67.photobucket.com/albums...etc...

In my attempts to do this all of a sudden an unexpected address appears:the existing http:// followed by http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif. This seems to be...the location of the dialogue window or what...I haven't a clue.

In XP I would copy the address to the clipboard drag over the http use the del key to delete then I would right-click paste and job's done. The process in linux is even longer - my description above only gets me to the pasting of an incorrect address. It takes further wrangling to actually finish the job. On the whole I like the auto-copy and middle-click pasting you get with Linux. (I've heard it described as a unix convention so you probably do the same thing with Macs.) No doubt something similar is doable in XP through 3rd party software. I must scout around for it.

And what happens if I do link to that mystery address?

2006-12-31T11:24:00.000-08:00

A friend expressed an interest in Linux so I wrote the first part of a tutorial. Its this level of "simplicity" that's required. I am not saying its any good - but GNU/Linux help can take a lot for granted. You can read it here

http://docs.google.com/View?docid=ah9bm3k7qdnt_0hdnqrd

Needless to say he wrote back saying he couldn't do it.

Technorati Tags:Linux Howto

2006-12-02T16:28:00.000-08:00

OK I am sticking my toes back in the linux water. This is mainly thanks to Super Grub Disk. This has allowed me to install Ubuntu and not have to worry about the gf being confronted with a malfunctioning Grub at start up. Instead of the bootloader jumping (or rather failing to) at start up automatically I can now stick in the disk if I want to use the other OS. It's pretty intuitive though a bit long-winded. I am clear I only need the Linux boot option. It would be great if I could stick in a disk/diskette and everything would be automated until login.

Its still a mystery why this part of Linux is so flakey though. Surely growth into the domestic market is going to be led by "dual booters" rather than "clean sweepers". With the Linux community though it seems half the fun seems to be trying to alienate people. I visited Ubuntu forums for the first time in a while and within minutes I was reading someone getting heavy with a newbie for not following some weird etiquette.

2006-11-09T13:56:00.000-08:00

Linux got worse - the number of times I have to reach for the xp recovery disk. i get my pleasure now hunting down sites that slag off linux and all its ilk. Really really bad - things work fine - you put up with the quirky software and start to believe its got real potntial and then it just goes bottom up and it seriously expects you to faff around fixing it. Grrr..

2006-10-22T06:34:00.000-07:00

Hallelujah finally back in windows after another grub/linux scare. Luckily I had the WindowsXP recovery disc so I could fix it- also thanks to Knoppix that allowed me on my second attempt to get access to the net to find the correct procedure at the command-line. It is quite amazing that I decided to familiarise myself with the Windows XP CLI just the other day. Serious headaches and possible expenditure have been saved hooray! However it leaves me feeling a bit pissed offwith Linux. However now I know the reset MBR "command" fixmbr I have a blunt weapon to deal with the problem if it occurs again. iI iknow I am a newbie but even an easy to use and stable set up seems far less stable than XP_ - this must have been major startup problem number six in amount five months of use. XP has had scary moments about once a year. I think I'll try and stick ubuntu on it as its a nice easy install. Or as its there I could try mandriva. Or not - I've learnt a few tricks from Linux that I cabn bring back to xp and I know knoppix can work so why not forget about the second disk (I suspect it might be a bit of a dodgy disk anyway) Another linuxify windows moment is installing vim on the machine. I wrote this all in the console mode of vim shame it doesn't have the same integration as on linux but then there's alot of things missing from linux such as reliability with a dual boot.

2006-10-20T11:37:00.000-07:00

Think I am emberking on a bit of another linux diet. Have been o-d-ing on it a bit. Like two mags a week. So I am xp writing this.

However yesterday was abit of a breakthrough for linux - I trusted it to a practical task. Sorting out some train tickets. doesn't sound like much but if my focus is on doing something rather than general exploration I want to reboot into xp because of familiarity mainly and the presence of various core working documents. So I gave a moments thought when the task arose and decided I could follow it all through on Linux. A step in the right direction more than a breakthrough however I am also really enjoying being in xp at the moment with my nil problemo headphones playing bbc radio 4 at a single click. Have been playing with xps command line so all is not lost.

2006-10-01T11:29:00.000-07:00

I am still using a workaround for synaptic though it is a better one - each session I have to type something into mepis utilities and it works as normal until session ends.

Headphones are another item. they worked immediately with knoppix and ubuntu but dont with mepis. its about five days since I started attempting a solution. Zero response on the forum so far to my query- you always feel a bit uncomfortable when you get no reply. It makes you think the 1) the solution is obvious and I have overlooked some basic documentation 2) I have broken some bit of forum etiquette - I didn't declare what kind of cream cake I had for afternoon tea or something.

There are brief moments when it is nice listening to the radio through the phones when the gf is watching telly. It is a feature Iwould like but it looks like I will have to live without until I stumble upon a solution.

Showed my dad Puppy and Knoppix yesterday - he seemed interested. he did warn that it could entail long phone calls if he starts experimenting with them.

2006-09-17T09:13:00.000-07:00

Writing this is XP though have spent a bit of time in SimplyMepis. Time with Linux seems to be time spent fixing things. Had a powerdown problem- box wouldn't shutdown sorted this by removing acpi=off from the grub menu. The virtual terminals wouldn't appear when using ctrl alt and F1-6 I managed to sort it by trial and error. Got thanked by someone for the fix even though I was unsure exactly what I had done. A minor milestone on the linux path.

Then the screensavers vanished - this was some kind of recognised bug and there was a file to download fix that worked fine.

Synaptic and apt-get (they enable really easy -easier than windows-installation of programs) were big selling points of Ubuntu and other distros but somethings seriously up. Now it keeps directing itself to a brick wall. There are workarounds - use ping for the repository address than try apt-get. ping seems to clear a path. I really want to get this fixed- there are partial workarounds but I want synaptic and apt-get back to their former glory. Installing the latest distros should produce a step forward not a step back with utilities IMHO.

2006-09-10T10:50:00.000-07:00

Well I didn't make seven days without linux. I was helping the gf with something when I noticed that the dual boot grub menu had completely disappeared and I had no choice but to boot into XP anyway. Enter Knoppix Live CD hopefully to save the day. I followed a load of tutuorials/threads trying to get grub up and working but to no avail si forced to copy key data and reinstall.

This was my first linux install using a 6.06 Dapper coverdisc from Linux Format magazine. My big fear was accidentally installing on the Win drive which wasn't fully backed up - there wasn't much chance of this having spent twenty hours at the monitor trying to fix grub I knew the nomenclature of all my drives and partitions off by heart.

The ubuntu install went well. It was then that I realised I hadn't backed-up my various bookmarks and so on. As for the multimedia issues/codecs etc I wasn't sure what you were supposed to do with them anyway- do you just copy them over to a new install and they start working.

There was problems using synaptic so I went for a different distro installing SimplyMepis. First time everything came out too big so I reinstalled (my third install in three four days?)and it looked good. A similar issue with synaptic though - to get it to work I have to ping one of the repos addresses then do apt-get update this renews the list of apps. I had wmv files working on the first mepis install really quickly but still can't get them to work with 2nd install.

Flash works out of the box so I can watch youtube but I don't know what the situation is re Realplayer the only way to watch BBC that I found with ubuntu. (It took me ages before I got realplayer to work and it was great when it finally worked- all that has disappeared thanks to me reinstalling.)

SimplyMepis has an ok look- firefox windows look neat in it but somethings are slow- or at the very least have inconsisent speeds. Get annoyed whatching the icon bounce when konqueror is loading - a fast file manager is pretty important for jumping around for the bits for my main blog. Why is it so slow? Someone talks of increasing your swap partition but mine is just short of 1Gb so surely its not to small. Saying increase your swap and then actually doing it are two different things.

and it looked good. a similar issue with synaptic - to get it to work i have to ping one of the ar

2006-08-28T14:29:00.000-07:00

Day Four. MS Office got a lot of use today. Its formatting is a pain up the butt. Would I have been happier using Open Office Writer. Doubt it as especially it was a collaborative effort with my partner- she has a tiny bit of linux knowledge like "how do i boot into windows from this?"

You can't beat Windows for commonality.

2006-08-27T09:10:00.000-07:00

Day Three. Want to check out a video I made on the kodak. It has become a quicktime file
for some reason. Linux would give it filetype as avi or mpeg or whatever it is but windows
just shows this a s a quicktime movie file. Is it really. It also plays in Real but not
windows. Codecs and compatibility problems aren't confined to linux then
Annoying how programs takeover file-types without asking.

So bad marks today for both Gates and Jobs (and Mr Kodak why not?)

Quick Time Windows XP

2006-08-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

Day two. OK I had a sneaky peak at the Ubuntu Forums but it was with XP so that's ok. Had a look at thing about doing something with a kernel-thingy.

Got a cheap kodak digital camera not going to stick the software on I hear its full of crappy spyware type stuff. I'll just stick with the SD card.

I did want to boot linux though so I could save the pics I took on the much larger drive. They'll have to live on the Windows disk for the time being.

(Also nice to have the use of a desktop search tool again-yahoo as it happens- looked up a password and am about to search for the text file that tells me how to do the technorati tags.)

Yahoo Desktop Search Ubuntu XP Linux

2006-08-25T14:23:00.000-07:00

I 've decided to go on a linux diet. i have been into Ubuntu and stuff for a few months and its been a bit time-consuming. I need abreak so for the next seven days I am just going to boot into XP and see what if anything I miss and whether XP can fill the gaps.

So I started with some good old fashion scanning: adaware ewido and spybot. adaware hits 17 ewido 15 hits and 1 spybot hit.

Then I set up this blog with Internet Explorer 6.0.

So far so good. No problems yet. No urges to reach for a Live Distro.