Tag: Yahoo!

Drinking the Ubuntu Kool-Aid

Posted on by nolageek

ubuntulogo.gifI’ve recently installed Ubuntu Linux on my spare desktop machine and I have to say, this is light years ahead the last time I tried installing linux onto a personal machine. Ubuntu, which is an African word meaning “I can’t get RedHat to work on this machine,” just worked right out the box, if not completely flawlessly. It still requires some bit of computer savy to configure everything, but nothing compared to my previous experiences. With one or two additional packages I have internet, video, instant messengering, bittorrents, you name it – all working. I am having some problems with video chat – but I think I’ll be able to figure that out. Once I have that, I seriously thinking about dropping Windows from my normal machine. Hell, Ubuntu will even run on my iMac 3G. Since I’ve upgraded my iMac to the newest OSX I’ve noticed a tremendous drop in speed, and I’m thinking linux would be much quicker.

So far I can recommend the following apps:

  • Kopete: Yahoo!/AIM/MSN messenger client. It even does webcam but I can’t get incoming video to move past connection – it just freezes. The other party can’t connect to my cam either. I’m thinking it’s a setting somewhere that I need to fiddle with.
  • Firefox: Of course.
  • Wine: Allows you to run Windows apps under Linux. I have yet to experiment too much with it, but there are a few things that I’d like to try… uTorrent and Trillian (portable version) come to mind.
  • Automatix: Automatix2 is a graphical interface for automating the installation (and uninstallation) of the most commonly requested applications in Debian based Linux operating systems. Currently supported are Ubuntu 6.10, 6.06 and Mepis 6. Get your codecs here quickly. Much like EasyUbuntu, although I can’t get EU to actually run.
  • Frostwire: Like Limewire.
  • Thunar: File manager. (Like Windows Explorer)

If I can get the kinks worked out with the camera and perhaps add some cool eye candy like Beryl… I may leave Windows behind as well. (for future reference)

San Francisco’s Gay Weddings Continue

Posted on by nolageek

Read the article on Yahoo! News

As of noon Monday, 1,740 same-sex couples had been married since Thursday, she said. Teng said the city would continue issuing marriage licenses on Tuesday “unless told otherwise by the city attorney.”

I don’t really have anything to add to the story. I am very happy that SF’s Mayor Newsom had the guts to do something on this level. Even if the marriages are forcibly anulled after a few days, it certainly lets us know that some people in power are on our side and that is a good feeling. Thank you.

Glubs?

Posted on by nolageek

This is pretty cool. It’s a set of scripts that make it possible to run your own “community” site like Yahoo! Groups, or MSN Groups. I can’t wait to see it mature, I have an idea I could use it for. I’d tell you what the idea was, but someone may steal my shit. hehehe They’re a bit of the ways finished, but still too far away to use on a production site. I hope it’s not one of those great projects that have too many cooks in the kitchen and implodes on itself. I’ve gone that route before. That’s the frustrating thing about using a CMS for web development… it’s like playing Russian Roulette with your time. You try to pick the best software, with the best support, and then build your site and hope they don’t kill the project off when one developer gets a bug up their ass and pisses off the rest of them. Ahh, the pitfalls of open source.

Rice cakes for lunch today. Payday is tomorrow and I’m so excited I’m shaking.

Or maybe it’s from lack of proper nutrition? I’ll just pretend.

good bye sweetie

Posted on by nolageek

Pig Pen: Goodbye sweetie.
Death sucks. I know it’s inevitable but damnit, Pig Pen was three and a half weeks old. She didn’t even have a chance to play with a fucking toy.

Yesterday I took a break at work to write a quick post to update you on alll the cute things Piggy was doing. The way she’d walk with the new-kitten-legs over to you, crawl up your pants leg into your lap and dig her oversixed kitty head into whatever crevis she could find. Or how she’d muster up every fiber in her being in an attempt to bat a kitty toy three times her size- pushing herself to the ground in the process. Or the way she look up at me with those big blue eyes while I was sitting on the toilet in the morning. Or how she’d curl up in our laps or under a stack of sofa pillows for an hour or so, sound asleep. I never posted it because I didn’t get around to finishing it. I left it in a text file on my desk top, the icon sitting just below the picture of her I was using as my wallpaper. The same picture I replaced with the first graphic I saw when I got in this morning – some random GIF from the Yahoo! Mail website. I just couldn’t look at her looking at me like that. I had to leave work because, as I walked through the halls of the hospital, the sqeaking of opening and closing doors all sounded like her, crying from the bathroom while I prepared her food. I know we did the best we could, I guess I’m going through one of those the grief stages. Could I have done more? The vet said her temperature was 99.6 (normal is 104 I think.) Should I have left the ceiling heater on last night? I turned it on for minute, thinking she may be a little cold, but turned it off after it starting to stink. Something told me, even though it wasn’t cold in the room or anything, to turn it on. This is going to be hard, me thinks. The vet said it was the infection, it wasn’t the room, and that we did more than most people would have done… Sometimes love just isn’t enough I guess.

I just hope whoever left Piggy in that parking lot reads this one day.

Life isn’t disposable.

I’m going to curl up in bed with Plato and cry now.