MessyMissy's Place

I’m at an impass. I’m pleased with the way my NetBook is working with OpenGEU an yet I’m frustrated at the same time.  This is the first time in a VERY VERY long time that I’ve used Linux for a desktop.  It’s really come a long way since then and it’s very usable.  The problem is quite a few of the programs that I’m used to having available to me on windows and the mac just aren’t here.  I don’t think I’ll really miss them since there are alternatives, but it’s the fact that I can’t use their expanded functionality that bugs me. For instance if I wanted to use the video chat in gmail, I can’t. There isn’t code available for that functionality. There isn’t a Y!Chat client at all, you have to go through the web interface which isn’t that bad, but again it doesn’t have all the functionality of the client.  I know there is Pidgin for all the chat things and all that and I don’t mind it, in fact  I rather like it.  It still bothers me that I feel like a second class computer user when it comes to chat.  I love that I have the terminal and all the functionality that my servers have on the little guy, but it’s just the little things that bug me.  I’ll live with it for at least another month and see what happens.  I’m sure it’ll grow on me… if it doesn’t, there is always nLite.

I was a copy-cat a few months ago and bought a NetBook.  I got the ASUS EeePC 901.  it has a solid state hard drive and it’s about the size of a large paperback.  I love it and it worked great for me when I went to a SANS training at the RSA Conference in San Francisco and didn’t want my Mac anywhere near those looney “security” people.

when it first came it had the Xandros OS on it from ASUS.  while it was nice and pretty, it just didn’t do it for me.  Mainly I think because it didn’t have a terminal.  Who has ever heard of a Linux flavor without a terminal!  Anyway I reformatted it with Windows XP and put office on it for RSA.  Everything worked well and I was pleased. Then I ran out of room trying to update office.  I found out when I reformatted the lil’guy that there isn’t one 20GB SSD drive, but 2.  One is 4GB and the other is 16GB.  The 4GB chip being faster I had decided to install the OS to it and run some tools that modified my profile path and the path to where the OS  installs programs by default. Really everything was wonderful, except not being able to update office! Then I tried to get the webcam to work.  That was a no-go.  I tried everything, well except for the obvious, which didn’t occur to me until after I reformatted with Linux for the fourth or fifth time.  Apparently the webcam is disabled in the BIOS by default for some off the wall reason.

I fixed that and then decided I might as well explore the linux variants that exist for the NetBook crowd.  There are quite a few.  There are 4 that tried out: OpenGEU, Mandriva, EasyPeasy and Moblin.  I had problems with all of them to one extent or another.

I settled with Moblin for now, but in this post I just found out that I can’t cut and paste with keyboard shortcuts.  While that isn’t a deal breaker for this particular distro, it is going to be rather frustrating ince I use keyboard shortcuts quite a bit. I’ll have to investigate the little section  called “Pasteboard” which looks to be the way I have to copy and paste.  That is not exciting. (I messed up and touched the trackpad and moved my cursor, and since I still don’t know how to type, was still typing away before I noticed the issue. I tried the pasteboard and it copied the text to it, but then there isn’t a way to get it out of there and where I need it.  I’m really going to be annoyed it there isnt something as fundamental as cut, copy and paste in this distro.)

Another negative for Moblin was the install.  If you’re going to give me the option to install it the a partition that I want to and put the bootloader where I want.  That part better damn well work, which obvously since I’m writing this didn’t.  There were partition table errors coming out my ears. No matter how I tried to slice up the partitions between the drives it just wasn’t having any of it.  I like the overall theory of Moblin, which to me makes the NetBook a “Social Networking Platform” with a terminal.

Easy Peasy and Mandriva were just meh.

I’ve ended up rith now with OpenGEU which is based off enlightenment.  I like it so far… we’ll see how it goes.

International/National Friendship Day celebrations take place on the first sunday of August every year. The tradition of dedicating a day in honor of friends began in US in 1935. Gradually the festival gained popularity and today Friendship Day is celebrated in large number of countries. On this day people spend time with their friends and express love for them. Exchange of Friendship Day Gifts like flowers, cards and wrist bands is a popular tradition of this occasion.

Here’s to all those unsung Heroes of tech! Enjoy your day and Thanks!

If you’re interested here is the official site for System Administrator Appreciation Day.

I’m sure other programmers have this issue too, but it has really become apparent that I sometimes suffer from “missing operator syndrome”.  That disease that causes one to sit and stare at a piece of code that really should work for time unending, until you finally smack your self on the forehead or wherever and have “the moment”. Well there is your problem right there dork, you forgot the (insert relevant operator here)!

I had one of those moments this mornning.  I’ve been steadily writing an inventory system for work, which evolved into a inventory/staff directory/IP tracking program.  I recently added a section of code which allowed us to specify the purpose of the computer and the primary user of the computer.  Well inthe change I managed to put a quote in front of a variable.  This of course made it so that said variable wasn’t being read.  That makes it a little difficult to pull up user records.  Anyway, problem solved.  Score!

So I finally broke down and got some goat chops at the City Market.  Now my chore is to figure out how to best dress them.  And no I’m not talking in a frilly dress either.

Seriously though… I’ve got nothing on this one, so it’ll be an adventure.

I grabbed my rollerblades out of the closet this morning, so that I could blade the river trail after work today. As I went to toss them onto the truck seat a piece of plastic fell to the ground.  I didn’t think much of it, they’re old blades and I figured that I could just stick the piece back on wherever it had come off. Well that was not to be. the entire heel piece was apparently shattered somehow while they were in the closet.  No rolling around for me.  I guess I have to either go get some new ones or start running around.  Now I’m sad.

Really craved something and then when you did get it or something similar and you really weren’t satisfied.  Then it goes into the “what the hell” mode where you’re really annoyed cause that thing just didn’t taste, smell, look… whatever.

Yeah, that just happened.

As you may or may not remember, I made a lemon cordial at the same time as I made the lime and cherry cordial.  I’m very pleased with the Lime and meh about the Cherry.  The Lemon has a LOT of potential, but I think it’s going to need to age a bit before it comes into it’s own.  It’s like the Banana was before it sat for a month or so. I think once it has a chance to age a little we’ll see some of the promise fulfilled.

I’m definitely going to have to invest in some flavored fuzzy water to go with these.  I think I’m going to have to make a Chocolate Cordial as well and an Orange.  I’m getting all drooley just thinking aout these.

I think it just threw a rod…  Good thing it’s Friday!  Have a great weekend everyone!