All the reasons you need to get out and vote on Tuesday.
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Monthly Archives: October 2010
The day the earth stood still. Or at least my part of it.
Did time stand still today or something? I know yesterday was Tuesday and I know what my computer is telling me, it’s telling me that it’s Wednesday but I swear today just stopped all of a sudden. All signs point to it–really, they do.
Only 5 email messages all day, 4 were spam (spam stops for no one, not even God), one was a hosting account renewal notice (guess this site will be around for another 2 years then (sigh).
No snail mail. None, at all. Not even a flyer for the local market. Unheard of.
Google News was showing yesterday’s news. The “Elections” section was changing every 3 seconds but that hardly means anything. Politics is akin to spam.
No traffic on our road. Okay, we don’t have much to begin with but it was even less today.
The fishing access across the road was deserted. The fishing access across the road is never deserted. But it was today.
Maybe it was just my imagination but it’s very possible the most of the day just didn’t happen at all. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it now. t all began around 10:00 this morning. First it was 10:00 AM and then it was now–10:29 PM. Like there was nothing in between. Just 10:00 in the morning and then 10:29 at night. This is getting pretty scary, you know? What’s happening to my world?
Wait a minute. Maybe my brain stopped working instead? Hey, yeah–that’s it! The day went by in a perfectly normal manner, it was my brain that stopped functioning just like Windows® when it freezes up. Unless someone comes along and reboots it, it just stays that way. So, something must have kicked my brain back into gear around 10:29 PM. But I really haven’t a clue as to what it was. And here I was all worried that time had gone silly buggers. Come to think of it, the old head has been acting pretty strange lately, lot’s of glitches and such.
Maybe I can reload it with Linux? I hear it’s really stable.
And that would be quite an improvement.
The Average User of the Early 21st Century | No longer the unwashed heathen of the past.
I was participating in a discussion on one of the Linux Mint forum threads today and one particular individual and I managed to progress (regress?) into a discussion about what the “minimum specifications” of today’s modern computer should be. Of course, I’m of the opinion that you can’t actually state a minimum spec anymore where any particular OS is concerned and often times the manufacturer’s ideas of “minimum specs” defines as: “Well, the OS will run on this type of machine but you won’t like it”. And in that, the idea of minimum specs for any type of OS has very little to do with real life.
That being said, this is not what this post is about. Why? Because I believe that today’s “minimum specs” as in regards to a PC (PC defines as Personal Computer in this case; desktop, laptop, notebook, netbook) these days varies in direct proportion to the individual using said PC, even more than it ever did before.
Look, this ain’t the old days where the “average user” was defined as the unwashed heathen who had problems turning on and shutting down their machine let alone using it in a proper manner.The type of computer user that had never heard of defragging their hard drive nor could care less, got a blank eyed look when the terms Firewall and anti-virus were thrown at them, ad nauseum, that made techs like me shudder in wee hours of a sleepless night brought on by working on PC that was owned by one of the aforementioned users.
No indeed, this may be wishful thinking on my part but those days are gone, thank heavens, for the “average user” has been replaced with a more tech aware version that makes my heart sing with joy. But can you define exactly what that is? I think not. But let’s take a look at what might be called, the average user of the early 21st century.
Has a nice ring to it, does it not? “The Average User of the Early 21st Century!”
Yes, the average user has grown up thanks in to the arrival of the WWW and more importantly, the advent of the (wait for it)…
SOCIAL NETWORK !!
Yes, my friends, it was the online social scene, sites like My Space and later Facebook that brought the welcome end of the witless average user of the past. Now these average type of computer users, if you can indeed call them that, are a happily snapping pictures with their 10 Mega-Pixel digital cameras, downloading them to their computers, resizing them, enhancing them, cutting bits out of them and adding bits into them with $80 to $300 graphic programs, then uploading these pictures to their social site of choice. They’re not only embedding videos they’re making and even editing their own videos as well.
The Average User of the 21st Century is now syncing all sorts of mobile devices with not only their PCs but other people’s PCs as well. The new average user is highly mobile, taking their version of a PC with them everywhere they go thus they have become very concerned about PC security in a way that was virtually unknown even as little as 7 years ago. They wouldn’t be without their Internet security suite of their choice, go online naked?? Never! Most of them even know the difference between a Home (trusted) network and a Public (untrusted) network and how to set up their latest Windows and OSX operating systems to switch automatically. Okay mainly because these popular operating systems today do most of the work for them but most of them are aware of the difference nonetheless.
Some even know how to setup and use a PC as their central entertainment system–movies, music, TV, and games all run from one PC.
So, is there actually such a thing nowadays as an “average user” when it comes to the ever growing world of the personal computer? Personally, I don’t think so. Your opinion might be different of course and there’s always the comment section to let me know about it. Meanwhile, I’ll go back to figuring out how to successfully shut off my new PC without blowing it up.
Eyeball Inspection
The wee hours of the morning and I lay there, insomnia reigning as usual, when the long awaited feeling of drowsiness finally comes over me. The real world finally begins to fade and…
Tap-tap…
Poof! I’m awake again. Wondering what woke me up and why does my left eye feel funny? Must have gotten something in it. Okay, relax now, slow breathing, that wonderful drowsy feeling can’t have gotten that far…ah. There it is, world’s fading again, dreamland approaches and…
Tap-tap-sniff…
Ack! Stop it! Stop tapping my eyelid. I was almost asleep! Get your furry butt out of here, will ya’? Sleep now runs off to find someone sans feline. I plead with it to come back and try one more time. Okay, okay…I can do this now. It’s only 2:00 AM and there’s plenty more hours to go so peaceful slumber here I comesssnorzzzzzzz…
Tap-purr-cold wet nose-shed-tap-tap-pull…
Jesus! Get your claw out of my nose you ##@@!! cat! I don’t care if you are my old buddy, stop trying to pull my head around by one nostril! I petted you for an hour before I went to bed for heavens sake, what do you want from me? Blood? If you weren’t so damn old and I wasn’t so fond of you I’d heave you right off this bed! God! After all I’ve done for you and here you tap my eyeball every time I try to fall asleep! You do this on purpose, I know it! And what’s this cold wet nose thing about? And stop shedding all over my face just as I’m inhaling! Can you shed on cue or what? It’s a feline conspiracy, I know it and….
Purrrrrrrrr….tap-tap
(sigh) I do love the old bugger though.
Murphy’s Computer
“It is an experience common to all men to find that, on any special occasion, such as the production of a magical effect for the first time in public, everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Whether we must attribute this to the malignity of matter or to the total depravity of inanimate things, whether the exciting cause is hurry, worry, or what not, the fact remains.”
It all seemed so simple at first. Order a couple of new computers from my favorite online computer outlet, Tiger Direct, to (finally) replace our old ones, wait for them to arrive and when they do, open them up and check all connectors and cards before powering them up for the first and then proceed with setting them up.
So simple—not!
One of the machines arrived with a bad video card that would work for a few minutes then quit. Okay, this is not unusual for any new or refurbished PC as the pieces/parts that are stuffed into these rigs are massed produced and eventually one will go bad “out of the box” as it were. Say 1 in approximately 50 video cards by my experience times how many hundreds of thousands of computers built a year? Millions? In short, after all the computers and computer parts I’ve ordered online and through catalogues over the past 20 years or so—I was due.
So, despite the inconvenience and a rather annoyed wife (it was her computer that went bad—really—it was—ask her yourself) the situation still remained in the “simple” category. Send it back for a replacement, right? Well, not exactly.
There wasn’t any problem with returning the bum PC for a replacement, Tiger Direct smoothed that process out years ago so it’s an easy experience for the customer who is doing the returning. They even do the arranging with UPS for the pick up so all I had to do was box the thing back up again and stick it in the entranceway of our house where the UPS driver had dropped the new PCs off in the first place and viola! It would be done. And UPS would call to tell us when the pick up would be made.
So the UPS computer called us Sunday night and said the driver would be by to pick up our defunct machine between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM on Monday morning—so far so good. By 10:00 AM Monday morning, when I left to mind my wife’s quilt shop while she was off doing a local crafts show, the box was still in the entranceway but that was fairly typical around these parts and I fully expected it to be gone by the time I got back around 2:00 PM, and it was—sort of.
After taking a close look at the tag the driver had left in place of the box, it became apparent that this was a “First Pickup Attempt” tag, complete with the shipping label that was supposed to be placed on the box to be shipped, not left on the floor of the entranceway. To put things simply, the driver took the box with the new defunct computer inside and scanned it in as not being there for pick up. Hardly the first time this has happened with UPS but it had never happened to me before. And we had paid for that defective computer and a refund was depending on it’s return. So where was the box?
If I was pissed right off, my wife was volcanic. So much so that we’ll have replace some of the scorched paneling in our computer room. And one of our cats got it’s tail smoked as it ran out but I chased him down with the spray bottle we use for misting the plants and put him out. I’m sure the fur will grow back in time.
I won’t go into all the morbid details of what happened next but after repeated calls to the main UPS number for Package Pickups, which for some reason appears to reside in India, and being hung up on several times during the process, we finally got through to some sort of UPS Secret Service type person who apologized profusely for repeatedly hanging up on us, congratulated us on our persistence in this matter and promised that our “local” terminal(“local” being 80 miles away), where this driver was sent out of, would call us in the morning with an explanation.
So comes this morning and while I was busy making my breakfast, the phone rings. It was my “local” UPS terminal calling to say that the driver did indeed pick up the box with the defunct computer inside, slapped the correct shipping label on it and left the wrong label with the wrong tracking number with us. In other words, he goofed. Well, thank you very much, UPS, for straightening out the matter but I really don’t need this kind of goof up right now. Neither does my acid stomach or my lousy temper for that matter. Our paneling and smoked feline also have something to say about this screw up as well but I talked them out of a law suit as those things can get so messy sometimes. Expensive as well.
I do have to thank my wife for going volcanic during all this (despite all the scorched paneling and the smoked cat) since it saved me from doing so. Still, this incident had Murphy written all over it so maybe it’s a blessing in disguise that one of the computers went bad upon arrival. The machine obviously was loaded with bad karma and that karma spread out and caused much havoc before it left our domicile.
Opals seem to have something to do with it also but since I’m late for lunch, I won’t expound on it.
Replacing the the old desktop
I’m finding myself in a bit of a quandary this week. It’s a rather unique quandary in that I’ve never had one when it came to the particular thing I’m talking about. In fact, I’ve always looked forward to this kind of happening in the past often to the point of losing sleep at night, but this time though–and it bothers me.
It’s like this. It’s well beyond time to replace my rather old (read: ancient) 7 year old desktop. My old beast, an HP a645c which began life in 2004 and has been maxed out in upgrades since then, is rapidly coming to the end of it’s usefulness. Oh, it’s still a solid old bugger that has never, ever quit on me hardware-wise and still has enough oommph to (almost) accomplish most of my daily computing requirements which mainly consist of various online activities, a bit of web development, image manipulation and such but I finally had to come face to face with the realization that it’s time had come and quietly slipped past while I was busily looking the other way (I was obviously in a state of complete denial at that point).
So last weekend, after a month of researching desktop PC reviews, prices, current offerings and the like, I finally settled on one particular machine which I ordered from my favorite online computer store–Tiger Direct. It’s last years’ technology and that’s fine with me as the current years’ PC technology is still well into the OBIN category (Overpriced-Because-It’s-New) and doesn’t really offer that much more performance over last years’ RPBINN models (Reasonably-Priced-Because-It’s-Not-New). Of course, not being of the gaming crowd lowers my requirements somewhat.
And so now we come to the quandary. What the heck am I going to do with a new desktop that has a quad core 64 bit processor, 8GB of memory, a 1TB hard drive and a Nvidia GT220 with 1GB of dedicated video memory stuck in it’s guts for heavens sake!?!? I’m coming from a 7 year old single core 32 bit processor, 1GB memory, 200GB hard drive and a Nvidia XFX6200 with 256 dedicated video memory! How am I possibly going to adjust? It’s running 2 different operating system, each stuffed with all my pics, docs, downloads and such and the drive isn’t even half full yet! Now I’ve got a whole terabyte?
A friend of mine had some wonderful advice for me as far as the massive hard drive space and all that power was concerned. “Fill it up and play games”, he said. Well great–that certainly helps me a lot.
Anyway, it’s due to arrive today so I’ll just have to hitch up my britches and face the inevitable. I’ll bet it laughs at me when I first boot it up.
Converting the not so innocent
Last year sometime I wrote a post about how I had just finished testing Windows 7 RC, about how I thought that Microsoft had really come out with a winner this time and then promptly switched to a Linux based OS. No rhyme nor reason, I just switched one day and never looked back. The kicker is that I hadn’t looked at Linux since the late 90′s and that’s a long time ago.
Nowadays I’ve been happily settled in with Linux Mint with virtually no complaints or quibbles. In fact I’m triple booting Mint 9 Main (Gnome), Mint 9 KDE and Windows so it seems my geekish nature has once again come to the fore. But I’m not the type to try to talk anyone into using a different OS if they’re satisfied with what they have, which is usually Windows.
So I was rather surprised when a good friend of mine and fellow blogger over in Ireland one day decided to load Linux Mint 9 on one of his old laptops. And not only did he load it but has been using Mint on the old laptop rather than using his new Windows 7 laptop, figure that one out.
Of course you might be wondering why he just doesn’t dual boot Windows 7 and Linux Mint on his new laptop instead of loading it on an old one, right? Well, it appears that the manufacturer of the the laptop, who shall remained unnamed, rigged it so only the original OS that came with the thing can be installed/reinstalled and no other. Weird but not really surprising is all I can say, especially these days when PC hardware manufacturers seem to delight in turning certain hardware features off and then charging the owner to turn them back on again so why not hard drives with a locked MBR that only the original OS can write to? But I digress…
This adds yet another level of surprise on my part in that my friend struggled for 2 days trying to get Mint to load on his stubborn new laptop before giving up and hauling the old laptop out of the closet, that’s how much he liked this particular Linux based OS over Windows. And this isn’t some young buck in his 20′s whose (fresh) mind is open to new experiences. He’s older than I am as a matter of fact and, like myself, dabbled in desktop Linux back in the late 90′s but only for fun and amusement as Linux for the desktop was just wishful thinking back then. And also like myself, we’ve come to the point in life where we no longer use our computers for all the geekish type things that we used to “back in the day” but have rather more or less degraded ourselves to a nearly “average user” status.
So, for better or worse, he’s happily pecking away on his new/old Linux Mint KDE laptop, free from the all the inherent worries that come with using Windows*. Now, to be perfectly honest about it, there are a couple-three Windows based programs that are missed of course, but the real scary thing is that in the end, neither one of us miss them enough to go back to Windows full time. Now that’s something to think about.
*Let’s get something straight here. Windows 7 is an excellent OS, make no mistake about that. Which makes it even more surprising that apparently, and not just for me and my friend here, Linux Mint as well as the other popular Linux distros are usually preferred over Windows for those users who have given these alternative OSs a try, no matter what the reason was.