July 3rd, 2009 / No Comments » / by 
Yesterday’s regular update of Ubuntu corrupted something that caused the system to not find the root directory on restart. So I installed a copy of Windows and Ubuntu as a dual boot. I am not going to be going into the Windows spot much. I will probably just use that if this happens again. Microsoft should be kept on a short leash.
Posted in: 2009
July 1st, 2009 / 1 Comment » / by 
World Net Daily has an article up asking the question of whether Michael Jackson converted to Christianity before his death. Evidently Christian singer Andrae Crouch and his sister met and prayed with Michael a few weeks before his passing. I’ve heard this question every time someone prominent dies and I don’t find it very useful. First of all none of us were there. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. We don’t know. If he did. And if it could be proven, that’s not going to mean a whole lot to the people whose lives he impacted negatively. Though the crime is much different, it’s just like the announcement after the execution of Ted Bundy that he had prayed with Dr. James Dobson and converted to Christianity a few days before going into the death chamber. Somehow I just don’t think the families of the women he murdered found much comfort in that knowledge. These 11th hour/deathbed conversions become a discussion topic in church with the intent of showing the redemptive power of G-d that even “people such as these” can find peace. I’m sorry but you need a better plot device. There are other ways to prove your point than these folks. It doesn’t even have to be murder or sexual abuse. You could have an Enron-type situation and you’ve been working for a company for decades and putting away a portion of your earnings for retirement. You’re not going to retire rich and were just hoping between your retirement account and Social Security to live off roughly the same as you were making in the last few years of your time there. Then comes the big boom and the IRS and SEC and the media are crawling all over your building asking questions and then you find out that the gentlemen of the board took all the money and invested it in tapioca mines and Burmese tiger trap factories. So now the stock you had been buying is down to $0.21 a share and you’re going to have to keep working for the rest of your life. So a few months later you are flipping through the channels and you see the boss on the religion channel with the televangelist talking about how he met G-d on the floor of his cell and yakkedy yak and then barely five minutes later you read that the SOB died. And then the televangelist starts a sermon on the redemptive power of G-d and brings up this guy the dead chairman of the board who should be alive and in jail for what he did and you’re hearing about how he’s in heaven now. Do you really need to hear that? If the preacher had wanted to talk about redemption all he would have needed to do would have been to go to the Book of Daniel and talk about the life of King Nebuchadnezzar. The story is a lot more colorful. It has a happy ending, for Nebuchadnezzar, not Belshazzar. And you don’t have to be dragged through a homily about a Ken Lay type thieving finance jerk who took everything away from you. I wish Michael well…wherever he is. But let’s leave him out of the Sunday School lesson plans.
Posted in: 2009
Tags: Michael Jackson
June 30th, 2009 / 1 Comment » / by 

Posted in: 2009
June 28th, 2009 / No Comments » / by 
I was just at Target and everything related to netbooks is on clearance. Well not the mice but covers and bags and the two Eee netbooks they carry. I don’t know if this means they won’t be selling computers at all or if they are just not seeing enough of the product move quickly. The 9″ is down to $209 and has 1GB with a 16GB SSD.
Posted in: 2009
Tags: Netbook
June 26th, 2009 / No Comments » / by 
In a not so unexpected move to keep the closure of Gitmo on track and appease some and anger others, the President has drafted an Executive order to allow indefinite detention of terror suspects.
I think I am going to have to withdraw the support I gave.
He’s a puppet.
He’s so much of a puppet he’s dangling from the same set of strings.
Posted in: 2009
Tags: Disappointment, Obama
June 25th, 2009 / No Comments » / by 

Farrah Fawcett – 1947-2009
Posted in: In Memoriam
Tags: Farrah Fawcett, Memorial
June 21st, 2009 / No Comments » / by 
If all you do is run with what comes out of the box you don’t have a netbook. What you have is a surfbook. Get Ubuntu’s netbook remix. The whole idea is to be able to strip the OS off these things and reinstall it whenever it suits you. I just read where HP has a version of Linux with the command line disabled on their Mi series of mini notebook. I guess this is so that you won’t break anything. Whatever.
Posted in: 2009
Tags: Netbook
June 19th, 2009 / No Comments » / by 

Posted in: 2009
June 18th, 2009 / No Comments » / by 
Getting to know the linux superuser do command. I am installing Apache, PHP and MySQL so that I can run Wordpress locally on the Dell Mini.
Posted in: 2009
Tags: Dell Mini 9, Wordpress
June 16th, 2009 / 1 Comment » / by 
President Barack Obama on Wednesday will sign a presidential memorandum extending health care and other benefits to gay and lesbian partners of federal employees.
Ears are going to start bleeding just before heads explode over this one.
Posted in: 2009
Tags: Gay, Lesbian, Shack-up Insurance