IronWil CS

This could get me in trouble, I would imagine; however, I didn’t see another option at the time. My office has two Compaq Evo N610c’s that are not being used. We had plans for them, but we kept getting IRQ errors, but Ubuntu would still run and work around the problems.

So, I installed Ubuntu Feisty Fawn on one of these laptops, which I will call ‘Logan’. I set the time and date. Got Automatix installed and then the additional programs that I wanted. No worries, everything was running great! I was happy. Then I turned the laptop off and went home.

Wednesday, I turned it back on and finished updates. I noticed that the date changed back to January 1st, 1980 (?). Hmmm, okay, I reset it. Then on about my business. I moved some files to Logan, then Firefox and a few other things. At the end of the day, I packed Logan up for our trip, 6 days at our sister site.

No issues yesterday, I checked my eMail through the WebMail interface, surfed the web for information (work related), and my wife’s blog. Today, no problems this morning in my hotel room. I got to work and my iPod died. With limited plugs in the cubical, I decided that I can charge it from a USB port. Then to my surprise, Rhythmbox launches and reads my iPod! I can listed to music through it, SWEET!!!

I love it, my iPod is Mac formated and my desktop at works wants to format it every time I charge it; and Ubuntu says “an iPod, great want to listed to music through me?” Just another reason to run Linux. Maybe I can live w/out my 17″ (or 15″) MacBook Pro for a cheap WinBox with Ubuntu?

Oh the agony of technolust!

iron wil

As you know, I like to keep my finger on multiple operating systems and I am always looking for more information on how they work. This morning I came across this article on Ars Technica, “Windows Vista: Under the Hood“. This is a well written and informative article about Vista, how specific things work, and why some things won’t work any more.

Peter, the author, does a great job. In his article, he covers 4 different parts; (1) Other forms of Protection, (2) Networking, (3) Disk & Storage, (4) Encryption & Search, he also provides his opinion and criticism. I would recommend that you take the time to read this article if you have or have to switch Vista. If you don’t have to, I would encourage you to because this is the best description of UAC (User Access Controls) and IPv6 (the next generation of IP addressing) in Vista.

Peter also has another smashing article about Vista (link) on Ars Technica.

iron wil

Free Software Daily was originally launched in 2005 by the staff at Free Software Magazine. It was based on Splash. Later on, FSM’s staff decided to focus on blog entries rather than becoming a news hub. In 2007, the times were ready for Free Software Daily, this time based on Pligg where users vote stories up and down.

Issue 18 is here and with it another bunch of great articles all about free software. We have Andrew Min showing us how to dual-boot Windows and Kubuntu. There’s Mitch Meyran’s in depth article on 3D desktops and Xavier Calbet’s one on Fractal generation. Rosalyn Hunter breaks in new users with her follow up article on using the CLI and Jonathan Roberts gives us all the low down on how to get help with free software. Of course, I’m only scratching the surface… there’s a lot more in this fine issue of Free Software Magazine.

iron wil

By way of association, I have been asked to trouble shoot problems with printers in Windows Vista. I have learned, it takes 2 things to get your printer to consistently print and work with Windows Vista.

1) unplug the usb cable & plug it back in or
2) turn your computer off everyday.

What seems to be happening, is Vista “loses” the drivers and it has to reinstall them. All of the vendor software works, except that it says the printer is not connected. One then has to unplug the usb cable or restart the machine. I have not been able to find anything about this, hopefully an update from Windows will be coming on Patch Tuesday.

iron wil