Wednesday, February 28, 2007

More Good News

I needed Microsoft Internet Explorer for some of my school work. I didn't want to reinstall that useless version of Windows XP Home edition, so I set out on an adventure. I really didn't take to long. I found this post on on Ubuntu Forums, downloaded and installed the .deb package, and wa-la; Internet Explorer:

I tested it out on the Sam's Academy webpage, just to make sure. That was the site I needed for my school work. It wouldn't work in Firefox, Mozilla, or Opera. As you can see here, my adventure was successful. So, if you need the IE .deb package, follow this link.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Fixed Frequency Scaling, Again

Another Techy Post, but a brief one.

The Ubuntu Document Storage Facility is up again, and I found the missing part of getting my Laptop to 'throttle down': sudo modprobe p4_clockmod. Once I put that in, and went through the rest of the sequence, it worked. I think. I've throttled the CPU down to 699 MHz. I forgot to put the screen display down too, but I think I could eek out a bit more by putting that down each time.

The battery still leaks down pretty fast. It might be that the battery is just too old, or that I didn't get something right in the instructions. But, it is lasting long that it did without the instructions, so I think I got most of it right.

I also loaded on a sensor that tells me the speed and the temperature of the CPU. I like that. Let's me know hot my lap is getting.

Linux is somewhat crippled because some hardware manufactures will not release their driver information to Open Source solution providers. But, luckily, many do. So companies like IBM, Lenovo, and Asus have equipment that isn't too difficult to work with. It seems that Dell may have to comply with Linux solutions pretty soon too.

Monday, February 26, 2007

Aaachoo!

Tech Warning: The next few paragraphs are technical. Linux related stuff. I do recommend watching the movie at the end of the posts.

Allergies have got me, something fierce this week. Really bad tonight. I'm getting that left-side of the body aching and swelling too. At least the right side of me is fine. It's a really weird effect. Even the left side of my face is tense and painful. No, that's not the technical part of this post.

I redid my Laptop. I had it as a dual boot, but Windows XP Home Edition was useless on that machine. I used Boot and Nuke to clean the hard drive, then installed Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft. It's now an Ubuntu only machine. No dual boot. I used the alternate install cd. I've read a few reports on Ubuntu Forums that installing that way seems to make the machine run faster. I'm not sure if 6.10 is just better, but it is running faster. Programs open faster, the machine boots and shuts down faster too. Not sure why that is, but it really is.

The only problem I'm having is with the CPU frequency scaling. My laptop is a 2.8 GHZ machine. On battery power, it will run for about 15 minutes, 30 on a brand new battery. The CPU has the capability to 'throttle down'. I did it on the Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake installation. It took me almost a week to figure it out, but I did get it working. It might take a week again, but so far, I've not got the frequency scaling to work in 6.10. I don't yet know if I should be disappointed in 6.10, or myself. Either way, I'll still upgrade to 7.04 - Feisty Fawn. Some really interesting things are happening with it. Vista just can't match up.

I'm still listening to last weeks podcast of The Linux Link Tech Show. They had J.T.S. Moore on. He did a documentary film on Linux and Open Source software called, Revolution OS. It's actually a really good film, and I might actually buy it someday. When I can afford it. Maybe, that will be when I have a real job. One where I crawl under desks, and say, "It's wasn't plugged in." If you want to purchase it:




Anyway, just in case you're interested, here the entire movie, courtesy of Google Video. Enjoy:

Friday, February 23, 2007

Random Thoughts

Not too many tonight. It's late.

I've been focused on school this week. Trying to really learn more command line stuff. I now undertand how far Linux has really progressed. I barely use the command line at all, so my Linux class isn't that easy. In fact, it's not easy at all.

The Windows XP Professional is very hard. This weekend, I'm going to spend a lot of time practicing that. We use Virtualization programs to practice stuff. That way, if we mess up, we won't break the hardware. Just the virtual hardware.

The Windows partition on my Laptop is useless. It's slow, takes forever to get updates, and it's XP Home edition anyway. I don't think I really need to upgrade the hard drive for the laptop, but I've found a place to get the battery rebuilt. They claim to build it better than new. I'm not linking to it just yet. I'd rather try it out first. If it works well, I'll put up a link.

In April, I'll probably put Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 on the Laptop. I'm not going to bother with Windows. After using XP Professional, Home Edition is pretty much useless for me.

It's available at school, but I haven't burnt Windows Vista yet. It's on five CD's. Sounds like Fedora. Anyway, I don't really have anything to put it on, and don't really intend on doing it till I absolutely have to. I'll eventually have to, as many business will have it, and I have to know it.

But, I still think that some business are going to switch to Linux in the future. Especially Ubuntu Linux. I'll be ready.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Mark Shuttleworth at Google TechTalk Conference

It's about 54 minutes long, so I realize only my techy friends will probably watch this. But, I do encourage anyone the least bit interested in technology watch this. You get an idea of what I'm talking about when I say I'm encourage about the Ubuntu/Canonical business model.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Why I like Ubuntu

A few people have called me an Ubuntu Fan-Boy. I could be guilty, but not necessarily. I'm not as much an Ubuntu Fan as that I understand Mark Shuttleworth's vision for Ubuntu Linux.

Ubuntu has shot up above Fedora/Red Hat, SuSE, Mandriva, and other Linux distributions. Not just because it works on almost everything. Not just because it's free -most of the other distro's are free too. Not just because of the community behind it -Gentoo's community is just as strong. It has shot to the top because it has a figurehead.

Business, even if they're community driven, need a figurehead. Someone everyone looks up to. Respects. Fedora, SuSE, Mandriva, and all the others are either corporate, or community driven entirely. They're no real unifying vision.

Mark Shuttleworth brings unity to the vision of Ubuntu. That, and a strong business plan based on Open Source community involvement. Shuttleworth proved using open source to create a business is a viable idea. He did it with Thawte. Shuttleworth and others involve with Canonical know their stuff, and are really working to make it happen. THIS is why I'm an Ubuntu fan.

I guess you could say, I'm a fan of an idea. A business model. And, a strong potential. I guess, if anything, I'm trying to position myself with what I speculate to be a potentially highly successful business. I hope to be closely associated with it in the future.

Red Hat dropped the ball with Fedora. They're trying to pick it back up, but they're going to have a tough row ahead. The steam that Ubuntu has gained will push it ahead of even Mac OS X by the end of 2008. Things are happening fast.

But, not for Vista.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Friday, February 16, 2007

Government Regulation and The Poverty Tax

Government Regulation
It doesn't happen in a vacuum, folks. It's cause; not liberals. Not democrats. Not even government officials. It's cause by selfish, self-important, greedy people. Without those people, legitimate businesses wouldn't have to be bothered by government regulation. Business that self-regulate don't get bother by government regulations.

It's about to happen to health care. Not because liberals want it. Not because of democrats, and not even because of Lawyers, HMO's, or Doctors. It's because of selfish, self-important, greedy people in each of those areas. They are bringing legitimate business people in the health care industry to face government regulation. It will happen, and by now, it needs to.

In each area of government were regulations exist, it wasn't democrats or liberals that caused it. It was bad business people. People who wanted to cheat their way up. Their methods may not have been illegal, but probably highly unethical.

The Poverty Tax
"But, the poor don't pay taxes!" You might hear that, especially on talk radio. While the poor, and lower middle class don't pay much in government taxes, they are taxed none-the-less. It's called Nickel and Dimed:




The poor pay the highest fees, interest, and penalties of any class. They, and the lower middle class do so because the are the largest group. Banks charge higher fees. Insurance charges higher fees. The poor pay much higher interest rates. The excuse? "They're high risks."

The poor and lower middle class are Nickel and Dimed to the point where they can't get out. They can't get out from under. And now, with the increases in rent and mortgages, health care, and lower wages, you're seeing an increase in hopelessness. The increase in drugs is merely an attempt to drown the hopelessness. Impoverished overconsumption (I know, it seems like an oxymoron) is another symptom. People who can't afford it, spend money on things they know they can't really afford, because it's not going to make a difference anyway.

People who've never experienced that life, especially in todays world, don't understand. Thirty to forty years ago, you could actually work your way out. A person was able to live cash only. Not anymore. Living cash only puts you on the Homeland Security watch list. People born into families who manage money and wealth learned those skills. Managing money is a skill. Creating wealth is another skill, Keeping that wealth is an entirely different skill. Living paycheck to paycheck is a skill too. A survival skill that is difficult to get past. You get really good at it.

I experience this problem, to some degree. I have a problem loosely referred to as Disnomia. It's an unofficial dyslexia that is specific to digits 6 and 9. Unlike dyslexia, what I have is anxiety related. When I'm really stressed, it happens with 2's and 5's. Now you may ask yourself, "If he has it, how was he able to type them here?" A valid question. I'm able to recognize the position on the keyboard 6's, 9's, 2's, and 5's take. Have me put it on paper, and I might get it wrong. But, on a keyboard, or 10 keypad, I know the tactical location of each key. I don't even have to look at them.

Much of the poor and lower middle class have something that keeps them there. In some cases, education can help. But, getting that education is difficult, and getting more difficult everyday. You run into the problem of 'making a living' while your trying to get an education. That part, is next to impossible for poor and lower middle class.

I'm blessed. I know it. I have a support system of friends, family, and even classmates that go the extra mile to help me get my second education. Without them, I would be making all those extremely interesting Linux posts.

So, Thanks to:
Charlotte Thompson, Robin Thompson, Mark Thompson, Brian Thompson, Helen Allen, Stephen Scott, Brett Scott, Elaine Scott-Thompson, Amy Deutsch, Laura Hamel, Elias Khoury, ....

but most of all, thanks to my Valentine Nancy Deutsch, without whom I'd never have gone back in the first place, and would never have been able to.

Hey, I got her to use Ubuntu Linux, didn't I?


Thursday, February 15, 2007

Late Post

I've neglected my posting this week. I'm preparing for Episode VII: The Battle with Darth Hayter. This scavenger collector is about to make me an internet star. I'll probably do better if I actually lose the case. Unless he drops his case, you'll get some entertaining reading very soon.

I've had a lot of school work to do this week. I'm getting it done. The Windows XP class is just like the teach said, "One of the hardest classes I teach." The Linux class isn't very difficult, until you get down into the deep command line and shell.

ChaCha has changed their pay policy, and many guides are really upset. Instead of paying for ten minutes, they're only paying for the first six minutes of search. I've got no problem with it. I know my keywords, and I've set the links to them so I can get to them quickly. I think many guides are upset because they tried to set themselves up with keywords they thought would make them money; Brittney Spears, Paris Hilton, etc. All I know about those two is they're blonde, and tend to forget their underware. Not that I have a problem with that. Anyway, some of the guides on ChaCha will probably drop off. Better for me. More searches. I do think that the idea of ChaCha will work in the long run, but they still have some bugs to work out. Changing to the six minute policy was a good move, in my opinion.

ChaCha Search Search





For Your Viewing Entertainment:
Gollum and Smeagol Sing Barry White!

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Lately

Thursday night, the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival had the unveiling of the new image for the poster and T Shirt. I like it.

I think this will be a quick sellout.

Last Monday evening, we had a meeting about recommendations for digital screening for the Art Festival. We're going to recommend the need to change to digital screen for the next festival. We've done manual screening for the artist for 48 years. But, no one makes the projectors anymore, and the need to go to digital screening is upon us. One organization that does this Zapp. Another is Juried Art Services. Both have advantages and disadvantages.

I originally joined the WPSAF to learn about art. In my voting as a board member, the first thing I ask myself before a vote is, "Will this help the artist?" My vote is always for what will help the artist.

I feel comfortable around the artists. They're strange and quirky. Same with writers. I don't feel comfortable with business types. The pursuit of money just bothers me. It's one thing to pursue an income to make a comfortable living, but beyond that unnecessary. Artist do what they do for the art itself. For the passion of the practice. Same with writers. If I ever make money from my writing efforts, of course I'll be glad. But, it's not why I write.

Nancy and I did a lot of painting this week too. If you look on Nancy's Blog, you'll see what we worked on. Look closely at her picture of her in the black dress. See the wallpaper in the background. The picture of what we painted is the same room. It's like coffee ice cream color.

In Other News
ChaCha has been doing some upgrades lately, so if you tried it and it didn't work good, try again. It's still in beta, and probably will be for another year. Flickr was in beta for a long time.


ChaCha Search Search

Friday, February 09, 2007

Another ChaCha commercial

I think it's cool how commercials are being done now.



If you're interested in becoming a guide, let me know: danny@coachdanny.net

About Being a ChaCha Guide

This video will give you an idea of how it actually works, and what I do:




Right now, that guide application is only available for Windows, so I have to boot to Windows XP anytime I want to work. ChaCha is suppose to come out with a Mac OS X and Linux Guide Application this month. I'm looking forward to that. I abhor booting to Windows!

So, if you watched the video, you have a pretty good idea of how ChaCha works. Go ahead, try it out now:
ChaCha Search Search

Education

Just in case you haven't got the routine down yet:



Yeah. I know. You've already seen it. Deal.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

AquaSkipper

So THAT'S how it works!






The AquaSkipper is Human Powered Hydrofoil.

Here's the page on how to "fly" it: At Instructables.com

Here's the company's website, and their plethora of inventions. : Inventist.com

Real Heros

We've made the crossover. We can no longer complain about China being a police state. Maybe we aren't as bad quite yet, but we are getting rapidly closer.

The civil laws of this country are a joke, and the criminal ones are marginal at best. We're told, by lawyers of course, that it's the best in the world. For some reason, I just don't by it.


Josh Wolf is a vlogger; video blog journalist. He has a blog on his site. Josh Wolf has the elite distinction of being the longest incarcerated journalist in U.S. History, for failure to comply with a subpoena. He is being held under civil contempt. By way of his friends and family, he is still blogging from prison. There is even a wiki for those working to help free him. You can even review all the legal documents in his case.

For anyone doing a blog, it's important that you read about Bloggers Rights. The Electronic Frontier Foundation helps out with this stuff.

Many of you don't click on the links I provide. No matter. I still provide them. But this time, this post, is one important time I ask you to click on each link. This is one time when anyone who reads my blog needs to be aware. Aware of where we are headed.

I appreciate Josh for what he is doing. And, when I have the ability, I'll support his efforts, and others like him. For now, I'll keep doing my little blog.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

I have to get Vista!

Yeah, baby. Gotta have that Vista! Wanna come over to my place, and checkout my,...Vista? Come on...please, I want your Vista! You promised you'd let me take your Vista. What?! You gave HIM your Vista?

Valencia Community College has seen fit to make sure all the IT student can get Vista for business. I guess that's kind of "Vista Professional". Not Vista Ultimate, of course. Through their MSDN agreement, we'll get educated.

My current desktop doesn't have the full requirements. I'll have to increase the memory to 2 Gig, and get a newer, larger, faster graphics card. That's the way Microsoft and the hardware manufacturers are in kahootz. But HEY, I'll have Vista. Crippled by DRM as it may be, I'll still have it.

When I get the necessary hardware, the DVD with Vista, I'm still going to wait until Ubuntu's Feisty Fawn 7.04 comes out. That will be the latest, greatest version of Ubuntu. It won't be the Long Term Support that Dapper has, but it will take advantage of the graphics card. Might as well. Then, I'll have to move all my personal data to an external hard drive. I intend to dual boot both Vista and Ubuntu, kind of like I do now. I'm not sure how well that will work. I usually only do things like that when the system has gone kerplunk, but Ubuntu is working perfectly. Faster than Windows too. Zip! Bang! Whiz! It's like Batman, circa 1969.

Folks, unless your business provides it for free, or you have an application that will run ONLY on Vista, don't bother. At least for now. Vista IS going to have a learning curve. Instead of bothering with the learning curve for Vista, use the time to learn Ubuntu. The time spent learning will be much less that you think. Nancy uses Ubuntu every day. Ask her how difficult it is. Ask her how long it took to learn.

If you're use to Windows, I recommend using Kubuntu, a version that seems to work similar to Windows. But, Ubuntu isn't any more difficult to learn. If you have an older computer, try Xubuntu. I bought this computer in 1998, and it's running Xubuntu just fine. I won't be doing any high end graphics work on it, but I would be able to use a digital camera, surf the web, use the OpenOffice applications -or the other alternative Word Processor and Spreadsheet programs, and even watch a DVD movie (Thanks DVD Jon!). Here's the computer:
The cord you see sticking out of the front is the Belkin 54G Wireless USB adapter:


You don't need to upgrade. You don't need to get rid of that old computer. Unless it has a major hardware problem, it'll work, probably better than original condition.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Cow Bells

Last week was pretty productive. On Sunday Jan 28, the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival had a planning Think Tank. The Community Foundation of Central Florida helped with the process. The facilitator, Mark Brewer, was excellent at his job. I highly recommend his consult if you work with a non profit organization.

I'm doing well in my classes. At the moment, the Windows XP professional class is more difficult than the Linux Administration class. The Windows class teaches how to install, administrate, and manage desktops on a massive scale. Think 20,000 computers, all at once. Yeah. Not easy. In the Linux class, we're getting into command line stuff. I'm somewhat familiar with it, so we going into details of stuff that I already know. It helps to know the details.

I spent part of the week preparing a strategy in my attack against a Sith Lord. I'm about to teach Darth Hayter (sounds really good, don't it), a lesson in social networking, and the power of Web 2.0. He will rue the day he put forth a fraudulent claim.

On Friday night, we went to a 20th anniversery celebration of First Covenant Church. Nancy helped found the church twenty years ago, and was with them when it was just a group meeting at a Middle School cafeteria. I met the pastor, Tom Chanter, at Amy's wedding. He's a great guy. You can get a good idea of what he's like from his picture.
He makes religion fun. Maybe, I'll convert from Norse. I think Odin and Thor would understand.

On Saturday night, we went to the Burns Night Dinner of the Saint Andrews Society. Robert Burns was a character, and it's fun celebrating him. The world sings one of his songs every year.

Yesterday, we went to Universal. We went to a bunch of stuff we haven't done before; Terminator 2 3D, Back to the Future, MIB Alien Attack, and Revenge of the Mummy. We also saw the Animal Actors. T-2000b paused in his slaughter of humans for a photo op with us.

Makes me glad I use Linux!

What does the title of this post, "Cow Bells" have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing. It was the only thing that came to mind. I've never claimed to skill at titling.

I want me one of these:

Friday, February 02, 2007

My Heros!

Conservative based news network Fox just doesn't get it, and liberal based CNN (Turner) absolved themselves of their news responsibilities. MSNBC reported it fairly. These guys are my new heros! Boston wants these guys to pay for the stupidity of their own police force. If law enforcement is going to be that out-of-touch, they need to pay for it themselves. If I had money to give to their defense.....




John F. Hayter, watch closely. You're next.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Complete Change

As some of you may have noticed, my original CoachDANNY.net site is gone, and that address comes to my blog. With school picking up, and working toward getting a tech job, I wasn't able to increase my clientelle for Personal Training. It got to the point where I was paying out a bit more than I was making, so I decide to make the switch now. As of today, I'm retired from the Personal Training industry.

So, I even change my clothing line:

As you can see, the "Personal Trainer" title is removed from under the logo. CoachDANNY.net will become a place of fun. The Logo will not be specific to anything in particular, except me. Of course, I want all the attention, so buy a shirt and advertise me.

Click here to get to my store.

I am going to work an a complete website, but as I said before, I'm going to practice building, implementing, administering, and maintaining my own web server. I like getting experience by screwing up my own stuff, before I screw up someone else stuff. Except for my drink mug, my pocket pc, and my girlfriend, I don't worry too much about possessions. Not that Nancy's a possession, but you know how we guys are. Everything is a toy to us.

I'll still keep a few in-home clients, but in the future, I'll be doing fitness instead of teaching it. I may even post some of my fitness accomplishments here.

So, if anyone here in Orlando has an entry level tech position open, I'm looking. email me at: danny@coachdanny.net