Massive update

Well...lots has happened since I've put a post..

For one I lost my broadband connection, and have been put down to dialup. So no native linux anymore, although I created a Gentoo Virtual machine(VM) I can use with VMWare player under windows (the best thing since beer in a can!) I also have been using VMWare player to try out Ubuntu. It's pretty cool. I may use it instead of Xandros as my second distro on my desktop. Just for kicks, I'm going to set my Gentoo machine up such that it's got the GNOME desktop again. Now the vmware tools doesn't work too well under VMWare player, but I haven't played with it too much. Not only that, my laptop I house my VM under shuts down when I try to compile software in it, so I set up my office machine so that it will create binary Gentoo packages for me, and I set up my Gentoo VM so that it goes to my office machine to downoad the binary packages and not compile from source. It's cool. My objectives then are to get the VM just like I want my desktop to be like, then create a stage 4 archive to put on a desktop I'm going to salvage...sound like another masterpiece, which I haven't forgotten my pervious masterpiece. it works, for the most part.

Is Ignorance Bliss?

A funny thing happened to me at work today. I received a call from a lady trying to submit an online work order. She was complaining that her password didn't work. She said when she typed her password little dots showed up where her password was. I know I was wrong for this, but I could hardly contain my laughter on the phone when I had to explain to her that that was to keep people from looking over her shoulder to steal her password. Sometimes I talk to my mother about some of my experiences at work, and I"m always reminded of the fact that not everyone's into this computer thing. But SHE has been on the computer since I've interacted with her, so I would have expected her to know better.

My Masterpiece...part 4

I used SLAX to create a live cd of the DSL installation I customized for the lady. She told me to take my time because she was broke...oh well...soon as I get some CDs I'll burn a copy for consumption...but I realize now that the CD player doesn't work, so I'll install it on the computer the same way I did it last time: I had to slave the drive to another computer while I performed the installation from a live CD, only this time, instead of using DSL , I'm using a remastered SLAX-frodo CD.

My Masterpiece...part 3

I tried to burn a CD-RW of openoffice to install on the lady's computer, but the CD-RW didn't work on that old ass computer, so I created a VMWare virtual machine mirroring the lady's installation, where I'll add what I need to get the thing going. I tried using mondo/mindi, but I didn't get mindi to make the boot floppies, so I'm just putting a network card and copying the files over the network.....only thing I need to set up is the internet, which I will discuss with her, since she's in a dormitory with no ethernet :(

My Masterpiece...part 2

Im trying to install Openoffice 2 on this machine, so the lady can work on office files. I'm having a problem with a MyDSL package, so I may have to try other ways of getting this on here. Also, I may need to get CD-RW discs, as right now that's the only way any software's getting on this box....

My Masterpiece...part 1

A lady was given a computer and wanted me to see if I could do something with it... It was an old Pentium computer with 32 MB of RAM, and a busted hard drive.

Now what could I do with that???

Simple! The lady just needed something to type papers on, so I'm going to hook her up with Linux and OpenOffice.org. She's a beginner, so I should have no trouble hooking her up with some linux knowledge. I've already completed the first step, which was install DSL on the hard drive I provided for her. Now it's on to getting OOo on the computer. How to do?? just use CD-RW. I'll work on that tomorrow when I get home from my second job...

Back in business!!

I finally took the time to finish getting my desktop computer restored. All I really had to do was get the X working again and reconfigure the VMWare services, and I was good to go, thanks to the stage4 procedure on Gentoo wiki. The only problem is that my home directory backup was not complete, letting me know to test my backup before I rely on it. More later...

I'm using the program Synergy to share my desktop's keyboard and mouse between my desktop and laptop computer, and it's a sweet program...

Sweetness!!!!

I was able to use Amarok to transfer songs to my iPod Shuffle...the procedure was pretty painless...just mounted my Shuffle, connected and transferred the songs via Amarok, disconnected and unmounted the Shuffle. Voila!

That's really cool, since now I'm one step away from needing to use VMWare Workstation to update my iPod through iTunes. I've set up Amarok to download my regularly heard podcasts. With all the things I can do with the computer, mostly tweaking, it's hard for me to ever be bored with using the computer and technology :)