A Little Update!

In the past few months, I have done a lot of things with my 'old deb' machine, me EP700 and my EP900 which I would like to 'compile' into a little story for you. I hope you like it!

After my 'old deb machine's 'Tale of Two Hard Disks', those two HDs wouldn't live together. If they were both plugged in(one as master and one as slave), the computer would tell me that nothing was plugged in! Each HD worked fine solo and there was no problem with the wire so maybe they just don't like each other(one's got windows and the other linux, no wonder they hate each other!).

Once, the windows hard disk started to crash constantly until it finally 'threw up' and I booted into a blue screen! But, 3 months later, I plugged it in and it worked fine! It seems to recover from colds in the same way we do!


But, in the linux side of things, that computer has been a bit of a slug but... I haven't changed much... Ubuntu 9.04 and running fine!


My eee900 has been having the most adventures. Since I put Karmic on it, I have reinstalled thrice and tried 3 other linux operating systems on it!

I tried Jolicloud which didn't work at all but is still a beta OS so I'll give it a break. I tried Moblin which worked like a stubborn truck(wouldn't boot and just sit there turnng my cursor on and off!). I also tried Ubuntu Mini Remix which didn't go anywhere!

I have been having a look at Ubuntu Customisation Centre lately and if you wan't to make your own linux distro, this is where you should start! It lets you access the terminal, package manager and I forgot the other one before you even put the .iso onto a usb(or CD).

Next is my eee700(shining like a angel on the right!). This gave me a hard time. I got it given to me by a friend who had bought a 'better' laptop(VISTA!!!!!) and would give it to me if I could recover his files from it. So, I got easy peasy 1.5, booted of the usb, copied the files to my sd card, stuck em on a CD and the EP was all my'n.

Then, my black EP's power button stopped working. So I was forced to use this white thingamabob for two weeks. I got a claim on the warranty from asus and they gave me extremely good fast service in taking it back and getting it fixed. That took a lot less hassle than I had expected.

The 'white thingamabob' running easy peasy worked perfectly for that two weeks and has actually become more reliable than my black one in battery and 'falling apart' standards. After I got a bit fed up of easy peasy, i stuck Xandros on it which sadly would not even connect to the wireless! So, I resolved the problem by putting Puppy linux on an SD card and making the EP auto boot from the SD card while I left Xandros alone.

Now, Xandros is gone and I suppose I still use that thingamabob whenever I have to!

Conclusion: I have three interesting pieces of hardware and I am trying to improve my writing skills by writing a blog about my little 'experiments' with them(and a little more!).

A Little Competition

I love linux. I use it on everything. But... I still know that linux is not perfect and there are some advantages of using 'Microsoft' Windows on your PC instead of linux.

So, here, I have made a little list of advantages and disadvantages of windows and linux:

• In windows, when you install a program, it goes into program files and can be copied onto a usb. A containable way of installing applications onto your computer can be a very big advantage to people who constantly switch and movve around. Yes, in that way, Windows is better!
• In Linux, security is never a problem. Sudo only comes in when a password is entered. No need for virus scanners and no need for firewalls.
• In Linux, you usually have to be a bit of a geek to use it. Because unless something is closed source and payed for, it's guaranteed that it's going to have a few bugs. But, I don't mind that and neither do quite a few people.
• Windows does have viruses. Windows is the most used and therefore the most hackable operating system around.
• But, because Windows is the most used operating system, you have barely any incompatibility problems.
• And last of all, linux is free!

I hope this has added to your knowledge of Windows!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas All! Thank you for reading my blog! I hope to have some better posts soon. Merry Christmas!

How to fix the blue screen of Death

I love linux. I don't mid Windows too much, but I like linux more! Anyway:

I have an oldish WinXP hard disk and 6 months ago, it died of a blue-screen. Today, I tried it again and it worked! So, that's how I fixed (2) blue screens of death!

Sorry about the shortness of this post!

Wikis

In the past few days, I have tried wiki after wiki after wiki. No PHP allowed sadly. And I have reached a little conclusion which I recently typed up and here it is:


This is the result of my wiki experiment . Here is my primary view of the wikis:


*  didiwiki: This is the first one I discovered. Very simple. Very wiki. Very good in all.


*  Tiddlywiki: HTML and js. No PHP and nothing else. It is very fiddly, flashy an all in all, I like it! Allthough it doesn't work with chrome, so...


*  fossil: I was gonna give up with this. But then I decided not to. And after loads of fiddlig, I managed it and it was perfect.


*  ComSwiki: Rather odd. Quite simplistic. I actually really like it compared to some wiki'progs. But, it's a bit bad!


*  Pier: Ok, like ComSwiki, it comes up like an operating system! But this time it's huge. It's got loads of odd apps in this 'OS', but when you go into the wiki, it's a cool, ok, simple wiki that's a bit fiddly.


Now, I've got a table with aa comparison of the wiki programs:


   wIkIs: |DidiWiki|TiddlyWiki|Fossil| ComSwiki: | Pier:    
Size      |   1    |    3     |  4   |    7      |   8    
Complexity|   1    |    3     |  5   |    8      |  10    
Oddity    |   7    |    8     |  3   |    4      |   5    
Fiddlyness|   5    |    7     |  8   |   9.5     |  10    


Conclusion: D,T,F,C,P
             D,T,F,P
              D,T,F
              D,T,F
               T,F
                F


Ok then, all in all, in this file's current wikis, I prefer ... Fossil!


lol! Merry Christmas 2009-10!!!

Didi-WIki

I like wikis. Whoever made up wikis had a good idea. A wiki is like a public html page. Wiki's have thei own languag... Anyway, in puppy linux, there's a little program called didiwiki that soon after seeing it, I developed an interest in it.

I searched and searched the internet and found hardly anything. But what I did find was this, a place where you can download it.

The program is miny: 250kb? smaller? It is a wiki creator and a very small one at that. Since I can't find anything on the internet about it, I thought I may as well add so info on it.

When you download he tar.gz file, you can delete all of it but the didiwiki file which is all you need. Run it with ./ in the terminal, and follow the instrucions!

The Internet: So big and yet so small

Google indexes my search. Bing indexes my search. This controls my front page. That controls the top companies. When you go onto the internet, they say you are connecting to the whole world. But, no, your not. There are millions of fantastic things on the internet, but only the big ones are on the front page.

That is why the big ones are big. That is why there are only two used search engines(maybe not 0.000999%). Because, the person who wants to connect, he connects with something big.

Bespin, Your Community Editor

I have been living in web apps lately and now, I found a good one. Bespin, it's like quanta-online with a viewer and a mini-kernel with storage. There are some killer bugs in it, but I think that it is a very good program ready for the web-app world to come!

Picasa 3.5

When I first saw face recognition on a mac, I thought 'I've got to have that!' and now, using wine, picasa 3.6 and a few of my pics, I have it!

Picasa 3 linux beta was good. It had Google integration(upload, Blog this, Sinc) but this is even better. I'm dying for the day when picasa on linux works with it's movie maker!

So, how did I do it? 3.5 for linux hasn't been released yet. So, I installed Firefox 3.5 for Windows, downloaded picasa 3.5(or was it 3.6?). I installed it and, depite all my suppositions that it would be slow and cranky under wine, it ran perfectly!

Web Apps and Security

When I first heard of Web Apps, online storage and web integration, I thought "WOW! Cool! No Installs, downloads or carrying CDs around!".

But what about security? What does Google do with my account? Does it encrypt it with my password so that nobody apart from me can use it? Does it scan through it and fill in Adsense forms? Unless I know for sure that my personal details are going to be kept private, I don't put them on the internet. So the difference is, you have control over your information when it's on your computer, which means that you have to be more weary when storing data online.

I love web apps. The idea of being able to access my files whether I'm at home or on the other side of the world is a nice idea. But, you can't fully trust something which has stored your data for free and has full access to it.

Ok, maybe I'm being a bit pessimistic here, but security does matter and unless we can have some kind of grantee that our data isn't going to be seen by the wrong people, our data is not secure and online storage may not be so good.

gOS

I was browsing around, looking at all the linux distros and I find this operating system, gOS. This is what I though Chrome OS would have been!

It is based on ubuntu and has a clear, simple look. It looks a bit like OS X but also has it's own simple twist to it.

Ok, so far through reading about this, I thought 'I'm going to get this' but then I found Out this:

• It uses avant-window-navigator(maybe you dont, but I hate the way this sucks all my CPU)
  
• The last update was ubuntu 8.04(slightly old!)

Now that's a shame! It's a brilliant OS, works simply and fine and google gave up on it. Please google, if you're reading this post, keep building!

Google Wave!

Google Wave was made to compete with facebook, twitter etc. But I'm sorry to say that it's not going to compete. It's going to bash them through the floorboards!

Ok, so far, Google Wave is like ChromeOS, new and undeveloped. But the little part that is developed, originated from a good idea, and that's good enough for google!

Now, what is a wave? An email? A chat? A wiki creator? A brainstormer? A game player? All of them together. A wave is the most simple and flexible form of collaboration and contact(you can even have video!). Now, that is cool!

Ok, there are problems with wave and here, I will name the ones that I spotted:

• The Settings Wave is not finished.
• When, you mark a wave as read, it does not instantly go out of your inbox.
• There are too many wave directories(By ME, trash spam? why not view them as extras?)

Ok, now for extras:

• Wave should Have themes(blue, red, classic, forest...) like gmail and I-google
• Wave should recieve and send emails + chat and of course waves as well(that would put it faaaar ahead of facebook!)
• There should be two types of wave, settings and add-ons wave and a normal wave
• You should be able to 'delete', not just trash them.
• You need more extensions: chess...
• You should keep it simple if you're going to take aaallll this advice!

Well, that's wave preview. I'm just waiting for wave 1.0!

Chrome OS conclusion

Ok, all the disputes have died down now about Chrome OS and I wanted to send out a last reminder of what it was all about before we all close the tab and read something else while we wait for 010. When... it will appear drasticly different and well approved, in position and ready to become the sole or secondary OS of all the users worldwide!

Ok, so far, to be blunt(atleast with the version I was running!), Chrome OS is a slow locked down operating system that will not work for my net-book unless I have a network cable!

Obviously I think that! Google released the source code, they asked for help. They did not release a beta and they did not want to send it into war against windows(that's all ther gonna be fighting by te way, Mac will hopefully still sit up there as the high quality OS and the other linux distros will just improve their allready brilliant desktop quality), they were just asking for help.

How can I help? Was actually the first thing I thought. Well, I can't edit the source code or do anything flashy like that, so you can just learn to use JavaScript, Java or flash and develop web-apps.

Well, to set all the lines straight, lets all just wait, develop and change to the next tab in our tab bar!

I'm Runing Chrome OS

gdgt gave away a chrome OS .vmdk so that people could try out Chrome OS as a virtual machine and I downloaded it. Ok, then I got VMplayer as gdgt suggested and tried fiddling around with it(I had never played around with virtual machines before mid you!) I tried a few things with VMware Player and none of them worked. So I tried using VMware Workstation and guess what, that didn't work either. I also tried using them both together and that didn't work either! So, I gave up.

No, not really, otherwise this post wouldn't be entitled "I'm Running Chrome OS", now would it! Anyway, I then went back to gdgt's website and decided to try out the usb version and... It took another few hours to download it. When I finally had it(I had already downloaded about a GB so far all to come to waste so I was not exactly happy!), so I tried the README instructions in  the unzipped 'usb' file. Guess what, they didn't work!

So, I was really giving up now. I then decided to try and turn a .vmdk file int a .iso or .img which I could have then dealt with but... that didn't work! Then, I tried using Virtual Box to run the .vmdk file. It worked! Everything ran smoothly and I am posting this from the chrome OS!

Ok, true review time. In the virtual box, it runs extrwemely slow. But, it works! It has a nice interface and works fine but for the video. I like it and I'm waiting for 2-10!

Google Chrome OS

Google Chrome OS is gonna be the best cloud operating system. Yesterday Google let out some Chrome OS news and I watched and read anything I could find on it. So, my first opinion is that it is completely different.
The main thing about it is that it is extremely cloud integrated. All the apps apart from the slim file manager, notepad and maybe a few other apps are web apps. Google Docs, Mail, Twitter, all web apps.

Now, Google chrome OS is not now, it is in a year's time. I can't wait for it. It's waaaay simpler than moblin and it is absolutely awesome. Now, this gives some questions: Is This going to change the world? OK, you need two things to change the world, a grab on the world(Google, no power? No control? They have already got loads of people's attention so far) and something that can change it, chrome OS, a powerful cloud integrated operating system that is fast, simple and secure.

So, what is gonna happen to Windows 7? Ubuntu? Nothing. They will change and develop but they will not go. There will be two kinds of operating systems: More HD integrated and more cloud integrated.

Web Apps, what are these? G-mail, Docs... I just found several good ones here:

• pixilr - It's like gimp online
• bubbl.us - mind map creator
• mimiclip - games
• and it just keeps going....

Do I really need a password?

People hate passwords. I hate passwords. And we all want to find a way to get by securely without them. Well, the bottom line is, we need security and to have that we do need some passwords, some kind f guarantee that when our PC containing top-secret information(?) get's nicked or the HD goes missing, we will be laughing knowing that the guy who picks it up is gonna be bashing his head against the wall when he hears "Ah, Ah, Ah! You didn't say the magic word!".

So, if you've got Windows and somebody's got your PC who is somehow geeky enough to slave an HD, all your data is not only gone but it's known. Now, if I put puppy on that hard drive and did a heavy encryption, that robber is pretty darn stuffed.

But here's the problem again, I've got to remember my password. Well, here's my advice to that, remember it! Use a Greek travelling trick, stick it on your head, but remember it! Your gonna have to learn how to remember something or other some time!

So, Ubuntu 9.10, is just as secure as puppy now, in the install it gives you an encryption option, now that is good! An encrypted hard disk is as secure as anything can get(unless the password is guessed)!

S, bottom line: Linux is secure for three reasons, you can encrypt the HD, you can't get in without a password and, people don't bother making viruses for Linux because they either know it's impossibly(unless your looking at xandros) or their botting in luxury with Windows 7!

Why Linux Works

When I started out with Ubuntu, I wasn't interested in any of the other linux distros like Suse, Mandriva...

But, as you can guess, I've changed my mind, I do prefer some distros more than others but I pretty much like them all!

Google Chrome OS is gonna drag linux into it's battle gear and well... that's to be found out!

Phun, as entertaining as the name suggests

I found out about phun a good while ago. But it's only once in a while that I actually get to play it again because I always try rather big and unpredictable experiments (that's why I like portable apps!) so programs only keep if they are any good, because I'll only actually bother to get em back if they were any good!

Anyway, so what am I talking about? It's a 2D physics sandbox that is extremely addictive! You can invent something to do anything of nothing, except maybe something that's important! In simple terms, it's a program where you can build thing, press play and the objects that you place will move into action(e.g. if you put a ball in mid air and pressed play it would fall).

It's not open source, but it's free and build for Linux, Mac, and PC(notice the order), the Linux version runs dead slow so I use wine and run the windows version(bizarre, isn't it!).

If you have any interest in physics(or Phun) or just something creative, try this.

The Future of Ubuntu

I found out about ubuntu a few in 2007 when I was experimenting with an old 'piece of junk'(now a good speed useful machine) and I was quite impressed that something with an open system had almost reached Microsoft's standards.

So, I left that old 7.04 on that machine using it once in a while for the odd experiment. Never updating or looking into linux. A while lat somebody else asked if I could help putting it on their home machine(the previous xp died of virusation(or whatever you call it)). So anyway, that got me back to the ubuntu site and I realised how much the OS had developed in two years.

So, I put jaunty on that old machine and used that instead. Then I heard about karmic, in three months it would be coming out. Many bloggers and tweeters were saying "Oh, Karmic, yet another release. Six months, PSHAW!". I didn't listen. I just waited impatiently for Karmic. So, when it finally did come out two weeks ago, obviously I got it (15 min after the release!). I put it on my eeepc 900 and viola, I had ubuntu back(I had forced myself to stay with xandros until the release).

So, what did I think. I liked the background, everything worked(excluding the USC repos) and I was running ubuntu again. It wasn't as much as I expected(I was expecting a vista7 anyway!), but it was exactly what should be expected. Anyway, straight after, I read posts on Lucid Lynx, and what it was coming with. This time I looked at it with slightly less enthusiasm than Karmic.

Anyway, down to the big question, what is the future of ubuntu? Faster boot, better speed integration... a version of Linux ready to top all the other distros and show Microsoft the true power of the open source world(STAR WARS!). No, not exactly. Ubuntu has taken a risk with Karmic, getting into low level code did mess up a few things. And I think the Lynx is gonna be the same. Then, the M(oon?) may tip the boat a little more. But by then, gnome 3'll be there, the bugs would be cracked and the N(est?) will be the best version of linux out there(assuming that techology doesn't take a truly dramatic change that'll catch ubuntu of guard, but even then...SUSE?). And not just ubuntu, the open source world won't stop growing!

Stallerium, a real-time star watcher

Some people think astronomy is a waste of time. Well, if you are reading this post and you have that opinion, get over it! Astronomy is a good interesting science!

Anyway, when I started looking into astronomy software, I found out that 99% of it was open source, and obviously Linux compatible.

So, I found two programs, Celestia and Stellarium. Celestia is a program like Google earth but for the whole universe and Stellarium is for viewing the stars at any time or place. At the time, I preferred Celestia. Now I prefer the well improved Stellarium which is in the screenshot on the top left of this post.

It has a more sleek, improved and out of the way interface(It's in full view in the screenshot though!) and now, you can view from any moon or planet in the solar system(and I think a little more)!

So, if you have any small interest in astronomy live in a place that is really cloudy, try out this!

I've a new blog

www.tecreation.blogspot.com is fully up and working now. Have a look to see what it's all about!

Google Sketchup

Ever since I got my little EP-900, I'd been wanting sketch-up in it and now I Ever since I got my little EP-900, I'd been wanting sketch-up in it and now I have it! It's not SK7 but so what! I have it working and so I'm as happy as an angel.

Here is the fix and here is my smile! have it! It's not SK7 but so what! I have it working and so I'm as happy as an angel.

Here is the fix I used. I hope that'll help you get it working for you!

(This post was kinda scrunched up with a DELETE utton but I think I've partly got it back now with the google 'cached' feature!)

Sweet Home 3D

I just found out about and it, I was browsing around and I found a website about linux versions of windows apps. One of the ones on the list was something called 'Sweet Home 3D', I clicked on it an it led me to the website. it looked like Google sketch-up(my favorite CAD program!) so it got me interested. I downloaded the Linux version, uncompressed it and ran it from the file.

The 'Sweet Home 3D' splash screen showed up and then it went into the program. One reason I was impressed was the fact that it 'just worked'(like Opera). Anyway, It's an interior design program with 2D and 3D views of your floor(there's one problem, you can't stack the floors!).

It's not as flexible as sketch-up, but in one aspect that is good, because it limits you to interior design and makes it easy to view. A clever program that I liked straight away!

I really think you should try this app if you have any interest in architecture or interior design.

Picasa

For a while I have used Picasa, it's like a google version of Photobucket that comes with a free program. Originally, it was just for Windows, but then Google made a linux version using wine hacks. It works well and it is well integrated into linux.

On the right, you can see me running it in ubuntu karmic koala. It automaticly picks up any file in your user folders, it can be reconfigured (as I did) to auto-scan the whole file system or removable devices.

Compared to F-Spot, Picasa is a Brilliant Photo-Manager with crop, zoom, filters and several other good image tweaking tools. In linux, the movie feature does not work but the blog, upload, college and all the other features work.

If you want something like F-Spot that with more flexibility, tools and sleekyness, picasa is distributed freely by Google for, Windows, Linux and Mac.

Safari in Ubuntu!

Using playonlinux, I managed to get Safari working. It didn't work perfectly but it did work with the cool blue loading bar and the shiny style which I liked! Try playonlinux, it works with popular windows games aswell!

Gambas, VB for linux

The other day I was browsing around for a VB-like app for ubuntu an I found Gambas, which was just what I wanted. It's simple, straightforward and thats's all. Gambas, Vb for ubuntu.

Karmic Koala: Yet Another Review

Ok, at 3:00(GMT) today, I refreshed the ubuntu website and found out that Ubuntu Karmic Koala had finally been released. I only started using ubuntu in jaunty so I was kid of exited at this one!

So, I got the ISO(took me two hours for 610mb!) and put it onto my EEEPC-900. It booted slow on first boot then it told me that my battery was a piece of ***(not exactly) so I tested and within two minutes it took away 20%. At first I thought is was the OS but then I found, when I booted into puppy, that my battery really was a piece of *** unless,...(haven't tried that yet!). Anyway, the theme is cool, it does boot up faster(contrary to several ubuntu forum members' reports) but(but....) the famous Ubuntu Software Centre and Ubuntu One have either one problem or another.

Empathy and Evolution work like clockwork(is that the proper expression?) and just about everything works a tiny hint faster than Jaunty. So, apart form Ubuntu One, Software Centre and my blooming battery, Karmic is better than jaunty on my eeepc-900(linux edition).

Puppy Linux after a Day Review

My previous post about puppy linux was posted just after I managed to get it working. But now that I have used it for day or two, I've formed a more refined opinion of it.

First of all, I love the apps. There are absolutely loads of them with about two of every type(to give yo some choice!). 100mb! Now that is a good OS fr 100mb! Secondly, it just works. WEP, WPA, WPA2... Games... Bowser... Everything. I admit, it an sometimes take a bit of experimenting, but, if you're a geek, it's what you can't live without!

Third of all(getting to the bad bit now), nobody has written any of the experiments down! How to get you're wireless working... There is some info, but not enough.

So, I created a wiki to help the situation, here it is I hope to be seeing some edits soon!

I'm in puppy right now using Seamonkey Web-browser running the OS of my SD card using about 500mb max(half or less). Now, that is cool!

Puppy Linux, with a how to!

I have been looking into puppy linux, the third smallest graphical linux out there. I downloaded pup-430.iso from the puppy linux website to see if I could install it onto my SD card.

At first I tried the 'Usb Startup disk creator' under Administration in Ubuntu 9.04 but it came up with the error "This is not a desktop install CD and thus cannot be used by this application"(word by word, exactly that!) so I wasn't sure what to do.

Later on I was browsing around and I found a pogram I had tried(not suceeded) to use a while back called 'unetbootin' which I then tried on my PC using it to put pup-430.iso onto a usb. It failed(I was gonna try it again but this 8gb xp died of a blue screen!)

So, I tried the linux version of it on my ubuntu machine(emergency hard disk!), it worked. I ran the wizard onto my 2 gig usb, plugged it into my eeepc 700 and it booted absolutely perfectly!

To be honest, it looked a bit crappy(windows 98) at first but in not long it was fine after I gave it a hair cut!

That's not all. I've been looking at boot speed on OSs lately and I decided to do a comparison of puppy (running of my SD card on my EP700) and xandros(on my EP900).

So, I turned on my ubuntu 9.04 desktop, and using the clock and notepad, I got these survey results:
(The puppy on my 700 EP was on an SD card, so I had to change the boot as fast as I could at startup, this would make puppy's startup speed 3-5 seconds slower. Keep that in mind!):

Xandros Power On to Cursor View: 20 seconds
Puppy Power On to Cursor View: 47 seconds

Xandros Power On to Full Load: 48 seconds
Puppy Power On to Full Load: 53 seconds

Xandros Shut Down to Power Down: 31seconds
Puppy Shut Down to Power Down: 16 seconds

Now, if you ask me, that was a good result for puppy saying as it's running from an SD card on a slower PC!

My conclusion of Puppy is that it's a very good operating system with good apps and a good size. That's all for this post!

Dead Power Button

Two weeks ago, my eeepc 900 stopped working. I turned it off and when I hit the power button to turn it on again it didn't work!

I wasn't sure what to do. I was about to open it up when I remembered the warranty. I looked at the warranty card and it looked ok so I managed to get a claim on the warranty.

After a bit of, email, text and sorting out ime and date, an ASUS man came to the door and picked up my EP and it's transformer and put it into a pink box.


Two days later(today), it came back and it worked! It had Xandros n it and I had lost my file. But by chance, I had backed up the files to my SD card a barely five hours before it broke. I had UNR on it then. In 7 days, when koala comes out, I'm gonna get loads of distros!

A Little Wiki Thing

The other day, somebody told me about wikia and showed me their wiki. I liked it for one big reason, you don't have to sign in to edit it so I decided to try it out and created this wiki.

At first, I thought it was OK and then I began to get annoyed that the control of the wiki was all spread out and not simple like blogger, google sites or the long gone geocities. The ADs began to get on my nerves but I decided to keep at it and create a wiki with some relative content.

Anyway after that, I wikied(like googled but for wikipedia!) wikia and stumbled upon something called wikimapia(completely by accident). I went onto it and it turned out to be an open map. I had heard of something like it before on an episode of floss weekly. But, I tried it anyway. It turned out brilliant. As soon as I got ther, I added places I know. wikimapia is waaaaaaaaaaay better than Gmaps in most ways and it's nice to edit it without having to log in!

The Tale of Two Hard Disks

A while back (not so long ago) I decided to try and add RAM to my ancient 'deb' machine and it didn't work out so well. I had three hard disks in it at the time, one 40gb with a dual boot of XP and ubuntu, another one an 8gb with XP only and the third was a 2 gig with some old backups on it(it was unplugged at the time because I wasn't in need of it). Ubuntu worked fine with the change of RAM and sped up as I had wanted it to. The Xp on the big hard drive died of a blue screen and the other XP wouldn't log on. (That just shows how capable ubuntu is doesn't it?)

So, I tried to fix the Blue Sceened XP by putting the RAM back exactly where I found it but it didn't work. So, I put it all back like it was in the end, two OS poorer.

Then, I used the ubuntu and played around with it a lot. But one day, I was playing around with the users and groups and I accidentally made all users guests (I don't have a clue!)!?!?!

So, it was then useless to me but I left it because I had other things to do at the time. The day before yesterday, I booted from the 8gb to see what would happen and it worked perfectly. I was happy then and so I switched to the other one and reinstalled ubuntu successfully therefore havin two OS back up and running.

Then, I did the stupidest thing in the world, I decided to copy the contents of the 8gig hard disk to the xp partition on the 40gb. It went OK at first(but for the fan that was spinning tons of RPS; Remember, this is an old computer though) and then I went out for a bit and when I came back, the fan was spinning at it's usual, slow rate and the screen was blank. Nothing I did could change it so I hit the turn off button and rebooted. Then, it said "Disk Reader Error" then nothing.

So, (I thought *!*!*!) I supposed that the cable connected to the hard disks had died. I unplugged the cd and dvd drives and plugged one of them into the 40gb. Nothing. The 8gb. Nothing. Then I left them both alone and went to bed!

The next morning, I got another cable from a bag of stored cables and I tried it. At first I only plugged it into the 40gb(for no particular reason) and booted. It worked. Perfectly. Straight back into the same old ubuntu(the xp was flat obviously!). So, as happy as an angel. I took the other cable out. I then plugged in both hard disks making the XP a slave and booted. "Disk Reader Error"(*!?) So, I unplugged the 8gb and booted, making it work fine again.

That was what it was like until I wrote this post, supposing that the 8gb was dead and diseased. Half way through the post though, I tried the 8gb seperately and it worked!

And that is the end of the tale of: TWO HARD DISKS!

In the back of a Computer

If you are a real tech, you would have been in the back of a computer swaring your head off trying to fix something and you broke a wire or you accidetialy left the power on when you were trying to fix the fan.

The only kind of person who never did this would have been someone who used macs. Even the early macs were only understood by the manufacturers.

But now, all computers are getting smaller (and cheaper) and more complex. Have you ever heard of a person who opened an I-pod shuffle, fixed it and put it back together again? or changed the hard-disk of their new nokia phone and survived? (we're talking about non-aliens by the way) I wouldn't think so.

Well, this new way, smaller and more complex can make you miss the way you used to clamber inside you're old dell machine to change the RAM, doesn't it? But the advantage is, people don't heve to fix things much, for two reasons. One, stuff usually works now and two, stuff is getting cheaper.

I still like to open up the old PC's and swap things, break things(not on purpose), or make them 20 times better than they were before. They should carry on making even the slim PCs the way they used to (updating of course) so that people have more of a chance of understanding these clever contraptions.

Google Wave: I'm dying for it!

Every single product that google has made has been brilliant: Gmail, Google Apps, Sketchup, Search(The Obvious One!), Earth... all of them are products that have been done by groups of clever people.

And now the new wave is coming, Google Wave, it sounds fantastic, it works in an entirely different way to mail, facebook, twitter and I bet that in one years time, there's going to be very few people not using it!

Here I'll tell you what I do know and have heard from places. First, it's going to be extremely popular(sorry for repeating), it'll bring out a completely new way to do it all using 'waves' of information instead of just small snippets sent to you which will mean that they'll be the only one, so unless someone makes an even better one at that time, there'll be no competition so it will become the only good 'waving' product.

I'm absotutely dying for it and seeing how it will affect Facebook, Twitter and All the others...

Ubuntu Moblin Remix Review

I just read a ton of stuff about Ubuntu Moblin Remix and it looks awesome. A new stylish appearance and whoever desighned it's UI has taken a big step(risk) in taking away the task managing effects of Operating Systems.
It's UI is a bit like the I-phone, no window management(unless you want to!). It's a pretty cool Idea. It has it's own browser (based on firefox) and it looks really cool.

One thing I'm wondering is how much memory it takes, because if I try running it on a 4gb netbook, I'm wondering if I'll atleast have a gb to spare or if it will be the end of my memory problems?

The people who desighned the look and feel of this thing must have been pre-maccy dueds, because it really does have a similar UI to the mac and the toolbar gives the same feel!

I'm gonna try running it sometime on an EP700(Bizarre I know!) and see if it runs at a bearable speed or not because that will really show how slick and cool this Operating System really is!

My Googly Theme

I've been reading up on gnome themes and I have put together a really nice one. This is on a small screen so it may look different on a desktop.

Here is a step by step tutorial of how to get exactly what you see in the picture(even chromium!)

First, you need the window theme which you can download here.

Then, you'll need to install it by going System > Preferences > Appearance. Then click Install an browse to the tar.gz theme file you downloaded earlier. Apply It. Then, before you exit, click customise and make the:

• Contols: glossy
• Icons: Mist
• Pointer: Whiteglass

Then, close that and go to background and get this background and set to zoom. Then, go into fonts and make it look like this:

Interface: 

Show Icons in Menu: Ticked

Editable Menu Shortcut keys: Unticked

Ok, from now on is for perfect twitching and chrome with the theme:

Download Ubuntu-Tweak (2 posts ago)

Install it and then open it up, tweak to your hearts content, add chromium to third party sources, install it and get this theme for chrome. And if flash does not work yet in chromium, do this.

Ubuntu CPU bug with fix!

A while back on my EP I got a bug that made my CPU level constanly 100% and I only knew one way to stop it, reinstalling! I got this several times and this time I didn't want to reinstall because of all the setting up and I only wanted to when karmic came out. So, I tolerated it for a bit running all my apps at a very low speed. And today I thought of something to try. Create a new user and kill the other one(moving everything across) and now it's fixed, I am really happy.

So, here is a step by step guide of how to get this stupid bug off your machine:

1. Go to System > Administration > Users and groups
2. Click the 'Unlock' button and put in your password.
3. Click +Add User
4. Put in your Username (a different one!) and a password(can be the same).
5. Then (Before Creating), go to User Privileges and tick all of them(At least 'Administer the System' if anything)
6. Go to the last tab and take note of the user code
7. Click OK
8. Close the users and groups window.
9. Go into the terminal
10. Type 'sudo bash'(be careful with 'sudo', you can wreck your system, I did once!)
11. cd ~/
12. nautilus
13. Then you will find yourself in what looks like your file manager but is not.
14. navigate to /home/(Your Current Username) and copy(not the hidden files unless you want the virus on two users!) all the files. Go 'Up' click on your new username file and paste, Merge All, Replace all.
15. get out of that and in the terminal type 'chown (newusername):(newusername code) (newusername)/' then get out.
16. get out, log out. Login as second user(no virus) and then tweak it to your heart's content.

Here is how to finish off neatly by auto login as the other one and completely removing the other one:

• Go to users and groups, unlock and remove the user.
• Type sudo nautilus(again) in the terminal.
• Delete your old user's directory (/home/olduser).
• Go Out
• Go to System> Administraton> Login Window
• Go to the security tab, enable auto login(if it's not already) and put your new username in the box(it a pop-down so you don't have to)
• Then Put timed if you want
• And Your Done!

If there were any problems, please comment on this post (or my newest one if i don't reply).

Hope This helped(I'd been looking for it around the Internet for ages!)

Ubuntu Tweak or Ubuntu Lovers Heaven

I just got ubuntu tweak because i had heard it suggested once or twice on the forums so i decided to get it so I installed it on my 4gb hard-disk (1 gig left) netbook and...

It was brilliant, I cleaned a ton of stuff I didn't even know I had and I installed chromium complete(which work with flash!) and now I'm doing a complete switch to chromium, no opera and firefox fying out of the screen.

It also has a cool slash screen effect and some stuff that you usually have to get in the terminal, you can now to easily manually, a definetly must-get!

When Koala comes out I'm gonna put it on my 16gb netbook(it's got a bad virus/bug that has hit me loads of times with UNR) hoping it doesn't have the same virus and hasn't gone all no-desktop like the new easy peasy, I will, get rid of gnome-panel and get three things, chromium, gnome-do and ubuntu-tweak and from then see how it goes!

The Four Fighters

Apple, Microsoft, Google and the Open source world are the four competitors in this big electric game. All competing to be better than the others. Not so much the open source world but definetly Apple, the old shiny one, Microsoft, the middle age dusty dying one and Google the young, big and growing fast one.

This post is made mainly to point out that google is growing fast and Microsoft is being over-run. You could put it into a sort of dinasour analogy where Microsft is the big Braceasourus, Apple is the smaller herbivore(the one with the horns, I forgt what it's called) and Google is the Velociraptor family with the rest of the small selection of dinasours being the open source world.

Sorry about yet another short post but that's all I wanted to point out.

The Gnome Dock

When reading the Posts in mikesubuntu.blospot, I found a post about the gnome dock. So, I tried it out and, let me tell you, it is brilliant. It is really simple.
You type home(Windows) + SPACE and then it comes up and you can get qiuck acces to running/not running applications.


If you want to go to the extreme, you could remove gnome-panel from startup apps and just use the gnome dock!


Anyway, i like it

UNR 9.04, Easy Peasy 1.5 or Xubuntu

Some of you may wonder, easy peasy(1.5), UNR(9.04) or Xubuntu(9.04). Which one's better for your laptop/netbook?

First of all, I'm gonna tell you about Xubuntu(9.04),

It is a very fast OS because it's a low CPU consuming DE. Now if you have a brand new computer(desktop or laptop), don't bother with Xubuntu, Ubuntu'll be just as fast. But if its an oldie (like my old deb machine), get xubuntu, It'll run at a good speed and then you can finish off nicely what ever life there is left on it!

Then I'll tell you what you want for your netbook. If it has a tiny screen, you'll want something designed for tiny screens. And I'll tell you from experience that the best one for that is easy peasy 1.5+, I just tried it on a small screen and it works perfectly 'out of the box'. I compered that to UNR on my EP which on the default desktop was dead slow.

If you have a big-enough screen then UNR 9.4 is good, because it can have the default desktop(if you switch, add gnome-panel and gnome-wm to startup or, well, you can find out for yourself!)

So, all that in simple terms is, xubuntu for old(ubuntu for new) laptops or desktops. UNR for new netbooks(the new one's have OK screens) and easy peasy for out of the box performance on an old(or new) netbook.

I just fixed an eeepc 700 with easy peasy!

Before I had my eee900 I met someone who had the eee700 and i played around with it for a bit liking it a lot. Then, I got my one and mucked around with it tons and I found out a few things.

Anyway, the other day he said that it was busted. He turned it on and the screen flashed untill he turned it off. So, I tried to fix it and I coldn't. So I gave it back and told him it was finished.

So, time went on and yesterday I bumped into him and asked him what he'd done with his netbook. He said that he had left it in a draw the whole time. I asked him if I could have it for parts and he said "sure" giving it to me.

Anyway, I got home and turned it on. I saw the splash screen and then the flashes untill i turned it off. Then I remembered that when I reinstalled xandros on my eee900 I had to use the f9 key and choose a bootable usb from the list that popped up.

So, I downloaded the easy peasy(a brand of ubuntu I had used before) image and after ages of mucking around, I got it onto a USB and plugged it into his netbook while booting and hitting f9.

Well, it wasn't on the list. It said nothing about easy peasy usb. So, I was really confused. Then I tried again, this time pressing the ESC key and guess what, it worked!

I booted using the USB, copied his previous files onto an SD card and installed easy peasy, it all worked smoothly. Then I got the wireless and camera working by getting eee-control and installing it.

By the way, I was very impressed with easy peasy, they had fixed a lot of bugs in. their change from 1.1 to 1.5. Keep going easy peasy (with eeecontrol this time!).

And then... I wrote this post!

The Simplicity of Google (and the chrome OS)

Have you ever realised that everything that google makes: Google Search (the obvius one), google chrome, google sketchup(I love it!), Mail, imag... is so simple.

The Search with classic home is just a white page with links above the top and the logo with search in the middle. Easy to understand and easy to use!

And that is why I can't wait for the new chrome OS coming out in january(if I remember correctly!). The first version may not be so good but after a bit, google will jump off and its new product will start competing with Microsoft and Apple.

The nice thing I like about what I hear about the new Chrome OS is that it is going to be based on Unix(Linux is based on Unix) and it will become open source. Which may give Microsoft the ability to copy it but, one there will always be copying, two It will shine it up anyway and three, people will probably stick to Google at that stage anyway!

Google has a lot of things on the go, chrome, wave, etc. and it's working in a very clever way becoming a big company. It will be interesting to see what kind of choises it will make in the future!

An Ubuntu Blog

Here is a blog that I came acroos the other day and I absolutely love it and have read every page in the archive:

www.mikesubuntu.blogspot.com

Believe me, all ye ubuntu geeks, this blog is Fantastic!

(Note: Sorry Mike if you mind me copying your blog picture!)

The Ubuntu Family

Maybe, (if you know what it is!) the ubuntu family confuses you every time you hear abut it. And fi you want to choose quickly without any knowledge, I'm telling you, Choose the Standard Ubuntu!

But I will also give you a quick go-over of all the diffirent most popular official ubutnu family OSs:

Standard Ubuntu: Linux for Human Beings Using the Gnome Desktop Enviroment. A fork of debian made to be more 'human oriented'

UNR(Ubuntu Netbook Remix): Ubuntu for netbooks. Whih is what  us and I love it! Note: Don't use the default netbook desktop, it uses up too much cpu. Just switch to the deafualt one, add gnome-panel and gnome-wm to the startup apps and voila, much better (if you want the netbook window effect, you just need to play around a bit with the toolbar!)

Ubuntu Server Version: Ubuntu for Server Machines (I you don't know what a server is, Look it up!)

Kubuntu: Ubuntu with 'KDE'(Kubuntu Desktop Enviroment) , a more flash and cpu consumptive DE. My opinion of it is that it is extremely flash with brilliant effects but it takes a lot of cpu and requires a good enough expert who is prepared to muck around and do research(unless they are extremely lucky!)

Edubuntu: An 'Educationaly Oriented' Version of Ubuntu. It is basicly Ubtuntu with a bit of 'cheezy' educational software which you can just install on ubuntu as far as I'm concerned. Unless your a teacher and want linux and is just starting.

Xubuntu: Make with XFCE which makes it better for old computers. It is very fast for old computers so don't trash you're oldies, just but Xubuntu on em!

UMR(Ubuntu Moblin Remix) An ubuntu version of Moblin(Mobile linux) I don't know much about it but please comment on this post to tell mee what it's like.

Gobuntu: A 'Green and Free' Version of Ubuntu. I think people are too crazy about green and natural so i don't agree with the philosophy of this one!

Ubuntu Studio: An Artist's Version of Ubuntu. I think it looks absolutey fantastic from the site. But you need a DVD to get it. Which is fine but I prefer to use DVDs for more important things. Otherwise I think this OS looks brilliant!

Mythbuntu: An Ubuntu for 'Myth TV'(I dont have a clue what that i)

Kubuntu Netbook(October09): Kubuntu 'Netbook Remix': Coming out in the future and i sure hope it's good!

An there are probably half a million others (Macbuntu, H...) but they are so small(and much probably worse), that I do not add them to this post!

Chromium or Google Chrome

Today I was surfing around looking at all the 'best browsers'(which is my latest curiosity) and I found chrome. I had seen it before and had liked the look but I had never actually used it. So, I looked around for a bit more and found Chromium (Chrome for Linux) and I installed it and loved it!

It wasn't good on flash and miniclip but it was extremly fast and simple with a very slick appearance. I compared it to Safari and saw no diffirence but for the chrome tab effect and the navigation toolbar boxes both as one in chrome.

This post is only short because unlike any other browser, I had no problems!

Vista OS X 10

The other day, my cousin was looking at my eeepc and he saw that it looked like a mac and he asked if he could have his windows vista machine looking like a mac also. So I said that I would give it a try and started surfing around too find a program to make vista look like mac.

After a while I found something called Rocket-Dock which would put a dock on the screen. So, I tried it and it worked but had one problem, It was in a kind of 2d style unlike the traditional mac one. But, it did for a time, so I moved the vista panel to the top of the desktop and started looking around a bit more...

After a while I found something called vista leopard transformer (or something like that) and I had to swith something off, so I did switch it of and then I carried on and something went wrong. So I looked around some more and found Vista OS X 10, a transformation pack for vista.

So, I tried it... At first I had to restart the computer, second was a bit less dramatic and on the thir time...

It worked absolutely perfectly, toolbars changed, windows changed a diffirent and cooler dock appeared, I loved it! And My cousin liked it even more!

Opera

Yesterday I was using firefox and was getting a bit annoyed that my friend couldn't play miniclip games on it (even though I had java), and I could only watch u-tube movies on it if I was running it in wine which crashed loads!

So, I tried safari (this is on Ubuntu Netbook Remix by the way) and followed the tutorial but when I clicked on it it didn't work! It did the screen jumped (a wine thing) and nothing else!

Then I went onto wikipedia and looked at the top browsers and saw IE (I hate it!), Firefox, Safari and Opera. So, I looked at opera and tried it. It was a big file, probably twice the sise of firefox and safari. Then I installed it, it worked fine and I clicked on it...

It was brilliant, u-tube worked, miniclip worked and everything was cool. It gave me more content than controls (which I liked!) and it was actually faster than firefox!

Then, I started typing this post a minute ago in opera after switching and tried to insert the 'O' image and when I clicked on the insert image button in blogger and it didn't work!

Now, that may not be Opera's fault, it may have been that the blogger 'New Post' html document was only made for IE, Firefox and Safari. Anyway, I'm finishing of this post with firefox and going back to my nearly fully functioning Opera!