Tag: Ubuntu

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division of labor?

Ok, we have the $199 pickup truck Dell computer which dual boots Ubuntu and XP.  It has 500gig disk drive. Is slow as can be. Has no bluetooth or wireless.  As of now the work is divided up as follows:

  • Online stuff – Ubuntu (except for iTunes)
  • Personal record keeping and finance – Ubuntu (except for taxes)
  • The Paperless Project – Ubuntu
  • Photo catalog – XP
  • iTunes – XP
  • DVD collection and copies – XP
  • Taxact software – XP – but last year’s version did run fine under WINE. But, the fonts were funky – so, I copied it over to the XP side for the final tweaks and printing.
  • Downloadable audio books from the library – XP.
  • Travel – the little Fujitsu U810 with Ubuntu. This boy will be retired to the closet shelf.

At this instant the new $$$ MacBook Air’s only function is “Travel”.It has a 128gig solid state disk.

Still basking in the glow of my new computer – I think I would like to move the personal record keeping and finance over to the MacBook Air. Not a problem – Open Office is running fine on the MBA. And my records don’t take up much space. The MBA isn’t connected to the printer and my old printer doesn’t network very well. But, I can print to PDF’s and use the Dell to any actual printing.

I would like, I think to move iTunes to the MBA. Which would require converting my iPod touch at least to a Mac iPod. That is a little spooky. Also, my tunes library is lavish. 35gig – takes up a lot of disk space. But, if I don’t do the conversion – well then my Touch can not be tweaked when I am traveling. I can still download apps and single songs – but no books or movies. I can live with this.

The photo catalog is just too big for the MBA. Some day I absolutely must finish the never ending photo organizing project. At this instant I have done 2000, 2001, 2005, and 2007.

If the MBA were connected to the scanner it would do a good job handling the Paperless Project – but we have the space problem.

The DVD business involves some highly suspect Windows software. It might run under Bootcamp. I might should spring for a  copy of XP.

So, this is how I see things evolving… For now the MBA will be the Travel Toy and maybe the personal finance computer. Long range, I see replacing the Dell pickup truck with a Mac mini or iMac with lots of disk space. And run Bootcamp for the DVD’s and library audiobooks and using some flavor of Windows.  This is sort of like the old Soviet Five Year Plans.

Also need to look into some sort of external drive action for the MBA.

Sometimes it is good to have girl plumbing
Sometimes it is good to have girl plumbing

CYSTOSCOPY tomorrow.

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another fine day

building next door reflection across the street - L1/new lens
building next door reflection across the street - L1/new lens

Another image from yesterday’s photo-stroll. The flag hanging from the blue building is a part of our local 9/11 flag tradition.

The hospital has some of the world’s lamest software. It is supposed to record what our office does to the employees. For example, if we give an employee a flu shot – I record that in the system. And, I can get the system to print out a list of “everyone who got a flu shot”. It will not give up the names of employees who did NOT get a flu shot. I think I have finally accepted that I am a volunteer and I do not have to solve this problem. If the giant brains at the hospital can not figure out how to do it – well, then they’ll just have to hire a herd of temps to keep track of flu shots for 2000 + employees. I am worth about what I am paid.

The MacBook Air vs Lenovo x301 race. Mac is winning right now. Ubuntu is a fine OS – but it takes a non-trivial amount of tweaking to make all the usual laptop goodies work. For example on my little U810 – I have never been able to make the keyboard lights work. So, my feeling is – if I am going to have a top end laptop – I’ll want all the do-dads to work. Also. Linux isn’t too good with battery life/temperature control.

Why do I want a new laptop – especially since I am happy with the really cheap very used Dell box? Well, the aforementioned U810 really is too tiny for these old eyes. And, I NEED a travel computer. A non-Windows travel computer. So, it is a Mac or Lenovo w/Ubuntu.

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The Karmic Koala

Played around with Alpha 4 of Ubuntu 9.10. Everything seems to alpha work. Didn’t see anything really new. Final product is supposed to boot faster. Faster is better. But, I’ll most likely pass this release by. I’ll be happy to stay with 9.04 until we come back from Hawai’i. To all you folks waiting to pay money for the next version of Windows – sorry.

Saw an online article that tells you “how to dress like a hippie”. Well, I got news for you… If you have to read about how to dress like a hippie – you ain’t never going to dress  like a hippie.

Going to see the urologist tomorrow afternoon. You have to give them a copy of your “advance directive”. I guess the practice runs a death panel. Now that sure gets your visit off to a happy start.

Got the links for 2003 all squared away. August 19, 2009.

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old people’s mailing list…

funeralWhen you are a old person you get really macabre junk mail.

dumbtooAnd, they must think you are really dumb too. Too dumb to figure out how to open an envelop. OR, maybe, only folk who are too senile  to open envelops are the target audience.

Got forward links fixed up on 2002. 2002 was a pretty crappy year looking back at it. Mom got gall bladder cancer. The Sniper hit our neighborhood. I gave up estrogen. Never mind, August 18, 2002.

Still feeling the Ubuntu Love.  I have decided that I like Dolphin better than Nautilus. Now, if only Lightroom would run under WINE.

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Things that I am surprisingly pleased with…

don't you love junk mail?
don't you love junk mail?

(Technology) Things that I am surprisingly pleased with:

  1. The vintage $199 Dell Computer. It is really slow. But I am not in any rush.
  2. Ubuntu. I started out being grateful that it saved my sorry ass in Hawaii. But, I really like and it is my go-to OS. Thinking about getting a MacBook Air and running a dual boot with Ubuntu. Not feeling any Windows love these days.
  3. Word Press. It is easy. It works. And anytime I feel wild and crazy I can toss on a funky theme until I return to my senses.
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it’s the berries

blue and black berries

Coming to an end to the LightRoom 30 trial. I am liking it. It comes in PC and Apple flavors. But not in Ubuntu. That isn’t a deal breaker. It is a wimpy solution – but – life really is easier if you keep an XP partition handy. Then you can run your adobe products and iTunes. Especially iTunes. Gotta have my iTunes.

And I haven’t figured out how to merge my LightRoom with my PhotoShop Elements Catalog. I have thousands of photos in my Elements Catalog. I have 4 days to resolve this issue. Maybe it will rain and I can stay inside and play with my computer.

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Firefox 3.5

Just upgraded my Firefox to 3.5 on the Ubuntu machine.  Software installs are much more, shall we say, interesting with Linux. But, everything went as well as could be expected. Seem to have misplaced my “user profile”. But, that makes for a good time to refresh all the passwords that the browser has been allowed to store. I keep my bookmarks with FoxMarks – so no problem there. I downloaded the plugins that I recall using. So, I am good to go. I think.

A friend of Carlton’s seems to have caught an email virus. Good to be using Ubuntu.

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Sunday

Street Stuff

Not much of a day for picture taking. Wasn’t even all that interested in playing with Lightroom. Did find the rather British looking manhole cover next to the shopping mall.

What I did do, was continue on my path to a “less paper” lifestyle. Most of the old stuff just got tossed. But, some got scanned and stored as PDFs.  I  recommend adding gscan2pdf to your Linux scanning tool kit. The only issue being I can only get OCR to work in German. I have very little German stuff to scan. But, I am not planning on OCRing anything anyhow. I am PDF-ing.

I did not toss my original birth certificate with little footprints. Don’t know why I am keeping it. I know that I was born.

I did toss – and did not scan – my original Internet account. From 1995. There were 8 single spaced typed pages telling you how to get online. I also tossed all of my old receipts for hardware and software. Didn’t even think about adding up how much money I have spent. Note that in early 1995 I was running a dual boot system, DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1.

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Looking Back 5 years

I was looking back in the old archives and came upon a picture of my closet. Strangely enough, I had just taken a picture of my closet to check the flash. What difference 5 years makes.

boots_161_6184after5years
Before and Waaaay After

This really is more than an example of a closet needing a good culling. I wanted to be sure that WordPress did not stick images out in the database part of the blog. It doesn’t.

I am very fond of the new database driven blog. Actually, the massive hardware/software melt down that started in mid-January might have been a blessing. I have some new best friends:

  1. WordPress
  2. Ubuntu
  3. KeePassX (for the Ubuntu side) and KeePass (for XP)
  4. FireFtp – a really fine Firefox plugin.
  5. FireBug – another fire Firefox plugin.
  6. FoxMarks – it might not be limited to Firefox
  7. OpenOffice – an old friend that I still use over MS Office
  8. “New” five year old Dell Optiplex

KeePass and KeePassX can share a database. It isn’t as easy/automatic as Roboform. But, I have all my passwords and answers to those stupid “What was your 2nd husband’s grandmother’s sister’s dog’s name?” challenge questions stashed in the KeePass database.

Foxmarks keeps my browser bookmarks in sync.