So I never thought I’d say this, but school has been kinda fun so far. It’s also been kinda surreal in a way. At the end of the day, I think the best lesson I’ve learned is that, in order to conquer some of my anxieties toward school, I really need to just forget all…
Professional Billiards Officially in Shambles
I’m just barely old enough to just barely remember when Minnesota Fats, Steve Mizerak, and Mike Massey did something on TV other than trick shots. They played real pool. They played whatever anyone wanted to play, but mainly, on TV, they played straight pool. They wore tuxedos. They playesd in rather large rooms. They had…
Skype Pretty Much Rocks
So I heard about this thing called Skype. It’s a program that you download, for free, and run on Windows, Linux, or Mac, and it lets you make phone calls over the internet, or talk to any other Skype user for free. My brother-in-law and I tested it out. He downloaded it to a windows…
"Which distro do you recommend?"
I get asked, by more junior Linux users, and people just looking to try it out, which distribution of Linux I use or recommend. It occurred to me that I never actually published an answer to this question, even though it is, by far, the question I am asked most often. I think my stock…
Happy level toward redhat on the rise with RHEL4
Redhat released Redhat Enterprise Linux 4 last week. It was only two weeks ago that I completely slammed Redhat, and for that point in time, I think that was perfectly valid. Now with the release of RHEL4, there are very extremely large changes, and Redhat’s intent going forward is solidified and made much more clear….
Insanely good day
Today I conquered a major source of anxiety, fulfilled a wish of mine and Natasha’s since we purchased the house, and followed up on a dream I’ve had for many years now. It was quite productive. First, the major source of anxiety: I’m back in college now, and one of the classes I’m taking is…
Paying for the privilege of lost productivity
I think the time has finally come. In the past, we’ve seen quite possibly hundreds of studies from think-tanks and research firms trying to quantify the cost of viruses, trojans, spam, etc to corporations in terms of lost productivity, downtime, extra FTEs, etc. The costs are astronomical. In the US, these pesky pestilences cost corporations…
Tired of Redhat’s Crap
Redhat has really been grating my nerves as of late. Undocumented features that are advertised but unusable, recommended updates that are thoroughly broken, failure to update packages with high-impact problems, and a poor software packaging and distribution policy have me testing other distributions with a goal of taking my business elsewhere. This heightened level of…
Dear Kevin Foreman: Open the Store to Linux
I’m a little pissed. In this slashdot story, Kevin Foreman, GM of Helix RealNetworks, Inc states that Real has paid Thomson for the right to legally distribute an mp3 player for the Linux platform. They then include that right at no cost to the users. He goes on to say, and I quote: “…we are…
Rant about people who are still using IE
There are a great number of people who perceive me to be an anti-Microsoft guy. I guess that’s an easy enough conclusion to come to. In reality, though, I feel like Microsoft has its place in the world like any other OS — it just happens to not be anywhere near anything I’m working with….