TubaOrNotTuba

I’ve decided to listen to the radio this evening. While I write. No big deal there, except that it involves technology that goes some lengths beyond the little crystal rocket radio my father used to attach to the telegraph wires in the station, roughly a half-century ago. In some ways, the system here this evening is overkill, but it goes with the direction we’ve been through the last few years.

Read the rest of this entry »

With the proof that a long weekend is at hand (gas just jumped to $1.37/litre) I’m moving one step closer to trading in my first real laptop for another. Son #2 is ready, and I purchased a new mouse, so that the transfer would be useful. Poor Dell One has a touchpad button that is stubbornly stiff, in spite of tabletop surgery, a lot of compressed air and wishful thinking.

Read the rest of this entry »

I read somewhere that nature abhors a vacuum. Well, my nature abhors the vacuum of a day without some computer challenge. Some people like things to simply work; that’s not how I see the world. Today, my new laptop arrived, and within the first hour I managed to change its working model to something that more closely fits my way of doing things. Multiboot.

Read the rest of this entry »

So, you spent time digging worms, and then you stood by a slow moving stream, watching some anonymous annelid wiggling on the end of small hook. In the list of intentions is catch a fish, clean and eat same. Even though you don’t like fresh fish, and you aren’t sure that THIS stream contains anything other than an old tire and some moss covered rocks that are slippery when wet. Life isn’t always simple.

Read the rest of this entry »

More and more often, I find myself booting up in Linux instead of Windows, and each time I come away a little more impressed with the efforts of the Mint team. After years of riding on the bicycle known as Slackware (biking is fun, but not always stable), I’ve found that the four-wheel comfort of the Mint distro works. This afternoon, I watched a bit from the DVD version of American Graffiti that I’d purchased from an eBay supplier. None of the problems with Linux not playing a movie I’d heard about. I just put in the disk and it worked. Like other things I’ve done recently. Wireless and printing and webcams and multiple language profiles. No kernel recompile, but some things aren’t necessary.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gadgets make the world go round. I have no empirical evidence, but it does make sense. Otherwise, why would acquiring some new toy bring that rush of pleasure; there’s probably genetic coding. Anyhow, this weekend I made the impulsive purchase of a TV tuner for a laptop. The USB stick kind, as recently reviewed in Linux Journal. There were a couple in stock at our local “Store For Tomorrow”, and the price (a ferry wharf, aka the Borden) didn’t elicit a gasp across the table, so we were customers.

Read the rest of this entry »

The conclusion I’ve decided to reach, this evening, is that either I have to devote significantly greater amounts of time to my random trials of Linux, or I will have to read a few more books. Enough of the library collecting; the evolution of the modern distro means that a few simple commands in a bash shell aren’t enough to impress the kids. They want a desktop, in colour with bells and whistles. No CLI for the GUI generation.

Read the rest of this entry »

The original premise struck me as one without much credibility. Someone had released a game for the Wii that was on double-sided media, and since the console had single-sided support, then you could send your console back and the company would upgrade things, free of charge. I mean, Nintendo might have deep pockets, but the sheer logistics of having umpteen million crazed owners shipping their beloved boxes back to the warehouse for individualized hardware changes seemed fantastic, in every sense of the word.

Read the rest of this entry »

The world of Linux is filled with potential. An operating system that doesn’t require payment to a very large corporation. The ability to tinker (and break things) which can only bring joy to the heart of the average alarm clock disassembler. A chance to program without having to program, if you see the nuance. Tons of support possibilities (metric or Imperial, your choice); if you can’t find someone to commisserate with your joys and sorrows then you need to check your Internet connection. And then there’s wireless…

Read the rest of this entry »

Never lower your guard, or else you’ll get hit. Sound like advice from that old feller down at the local sports club, the one that hangs around the practice ring and won’t shut up for more than the three minutes of a given round, doesn’t it. Not quite (I haven’t had to box anything more than my puppy in years). What I have in mind is the wacky world of the computer virus.

Read the rest of this entry »