Happy New Year - 2014!

That's about it for today.

Top 5 Things to Do After Installing Ubuntu

Ubuntu on Dell Inspiron 1420

Earlier I posted that I had installed Ubuntu on an old computer, but didn't really go into any detail about the hardware.  It's a 5 year old Dell Inspiron 1420 that was running with the original Windows Vista (service pack 2 installed).

This poor old laptop had a couple rounds of spyware/malware and was pretty buggy to the point no one wanted to even try to use any more.  Almost to the point of recycling it (or donating to a worthy cause), but thought why not install one of the new Linux distributions on it for fun.  Turns out it gave the old Dell a brand new lease on life!

With that said, I'd had some problems with the wireless drivers related to the hardware on this model, the Dell Wireless 1395 WLAN Mini-Card.  I had read previously about issues with proprietary drivers, etc.  Ubuntu connected via wireless without a hitch but I always had to manually reconnect the wireless after a reboot.  Researching showed several others having the same problem with 12.04 and recommended a different connection manager - wicd - but that caused more problems on the Dell because wireless broke all together.

Long story short, I put the default network-manager back and decided that the issue wasn't with Ubuntu but rather the drivers.   Still want to link to an article about an alternative for later:

Broadcom Wireless on Ubuntu

more Ubuntu changes

After setting up a nice screensaver in Raspbian on the Raspberry Pi, I realized that my laptop with Ubuntu 12.04 only had the default blank screen available.  Not to be outdone by the RasPi, I found some information about why Ubuntu's screensaver is the way it is and what to do about it:

How to Add Screensavers to Ubuntu 12.04

more Raspberry Pi

Here's something very interesting - combining my two newest hobbies Ubuntu Linux and RaspPi - A Raspberry Pi Build Cluster for Ubuntu

Never mind that I can't actually watch the YouTube video with Raspbian :-P

Still, if it could be done, I think having a modified Ubuntu that could run on the Raspberry Pi would be cool!

Setting things up on Raspberry Pi

Just for fun, I thought I'd buy one of these little Raspbian kits and get back into using Linux (and maybe learn some Python and Perl and the way). In fact, I'm posting this today from the RaspPi! Cool stuff but not as easy out-of-the-box like Ubuntu 12.04.

So, blogging some steps that I took to customize and optimize Raspbian:

1) Installed Iceweasel (version of Firefox) and moved cache and profile to RAM disk (surf the web much faster!) - Firefox Ramdisk
2) Added some new shortcuts to the desktop (I'm using the default LXDE desktop GUI) using LXShortCut  and added/modified the program menu with LXPanel

3) Oops, I deleted the log-out button from the panel! Never did find a graphical way to put the button back, but did find out how to restore.  Rename the directory ~/.config/lxpanel (to something like ~/.config/lxpanel_bad) and reboot.  LXDE will create a new panel from the default configuration.  Note the dot in .config (it's normally a hidden directory).

Next up is to clone my SD card so I have a copy of Raspbian just the way I have it setup now in case I screw things up again!

Customizing Ubuntu

Just for future reference, I'm going to try and list all the different software packages I've added to Ubuntu now I've got it installed on this old laptop.

I must say, installing and customizing things on Ubuntu is much easier than the last time I tried using a flavor of Linux (Redhat back around 2006 or so).

Here's the list so far:

• Oracle Java(TM) Development Kit (JDK) 7
• Eclipse, using the Ubuntu Software Center, got an older version (Indigo), but that's ok with me
• Wikipedia Lens
• OpenSSH server
• Gimp
• Lightweight Java Game Library (lwjgl) by following this link
• Boot-Up Manager (BUM)
• ClassicMenu Indicator
• Kompozer
• XChat-GNOME
• FileZilla (I know it's got FTP built in, but I like FileZilla anyway)

That's it for now, but I'm sure to find some more toys to download and install.

Do you Ubuntu?

Just installed Ubuntu 12.04 on an old laptop.  Pretty cool so far.  Always liked working with Linux and now they are so easy to install and configure, even with WiFi, webcams, USB, etc.

It was quite an "upgrade" from the cranky old Windows Vista that was running on this computer. 

The reports of my death are highly exaggerated

EM man wanted in shooting death of Darrell Little

Good thing *I* don't live in Moline, IL

MegaMediaMashUpGoogleLand

Fun things to report - new Mac mini to replace the much loved iMac G4 Sunflower, upgrading the iPad to iOS 7 (eh...), rolling along with the Java programming course.

Discover completely by accident (how else do you find something in the YouTube universe?): SourceFed Nerd

Some random rambling about geek tech (but what else would you want to watch?) and some actually funny stuff.

iTunes on Windows Vista = No Fun

Dear Apple iTunes team:  the 11.0.2 update takes way too long to install.

Or is this yet another incompatibility with Windows Vista?

Sincerely,

Loyal Apple Customers who still use Microsoft Windows

Oops

Wow, 2012 sure did go by quickly.  Didn't even think about posting anything here.

Going to try and get back into blogging again now that I'm taking a few classes in Java programming.

Another Blog-a-versary so to speak ... it's been 10 years since my first blog entry here. Significant observations:

• Facebook is a world-wide phenomenon


• Moved on past Windows Vista and pretty happy with Windows 7


• Web development is pretty much taken over by Content Management Systems


• My latest Apple computer is a half-inch thick and has no keyboard (gotta love that iPad)


• I've given up on trying to learn Office 2007, now Office 2010

Might post here again in another year or so. LOL

Vista Doesn't Allow QuickTime Updates

I was having problems trying to update QuickTime on my laptop with Vista. Two different laptops, in fact. It would go all the way through the download, click on the UAC to allow the install but then it would fail. No real clue as to why (one of those wonderful non-specific error messages). After much searching through different engines (Live, Google, Yahoo), I started to see some other blogs refering back to this one site. Turns out it's a problem with VBscript being registered properly on Vista. This was not anything related to the error message I was getting, but it did fix it!

Fix for VBScript Error When Installing iTunes/Quicktime on Vista

Ruby on Rails

Lately I've been reading quite a bit about this web development platform. Unfortunately the shell account I have on pair.com doesn't support Ruby, but I'm trying to get my hands on an old Sun workstation to tinker with. For those that would like to know how to install Rails on Solaris:

How to get Rails 1.2 Up and Running on Solaris

A Good Story

Just thought that I would share this:

Network Neutrality and different kind of script kiddy

Windows Vista Error

Well, I ran into my first unknown error with Windows Vista. The Windows Update kept running in the background saying that it was downloading an update with 0% finished. This kept on for a couple of days, so I opened up the Control Panel and got one of those wonderfully vague error codes '80070020' - with no other explanation. There's an option to "Get Help" so I tried that and it just took me around in another loop of opening up Windows Update, blah, blah, blah.

So I started Googling ... and found this article: 0x80070020 The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.

Ok, right error code, wrong explanation. Sort of. Turns out that if you have real-time antivirus protection running it will interfere with some Windows Updates. Long story short, you have to disable your anti-virus just long enough to get the update installed. I tried that and it worked. Lesson learned.

Happy Blog-a-versary

I just noticed that I've been blogging here for 6 years now (the Archive goes back to April, 2001). Can't help but comment on how hugely popular blogging has become. Back in '01 there were a few interesting sites worth reading and it was a cool thing to do. Now it's crept into the corporate world and they're everywhere. Was blogging the beginning of a web revolution, the start of the social web, Web 2.0? Heck, I remember back when Gopher, Archie and Veronica were "new" tools to use on the Internet. Yes, I'm old. hahahahahaha

Web Development on a Mac

I've written and coded web pages all sorts of ways and platforms. All the way from WYSIWYG tools like Dreamweaver or Front Page to Notepad. Even using vi on a Linux box isn't all that bad. I still prefer to work on Macs and so I usually use some sort of text editor like BBEdit. There's a vast difference in web design tools written for the Windows platform and those for a Mac.

One company that has gotten the right idea is Panic Software and their new all-in-one development tool called Coda. It's got a text editor, FTP client, Telnet client and reference lookup tool all rolled up into one nice looking interface.

I've just downloaded it and tried it out once, but at first glance it's got my vote. I've been using Panic's Transmit FTP client since 2003 and it's great. Match that with a text editor and that's how I work web pages on my Mac. The trouble is that there's no way to synch up updated pages and I'm of course always jumping back and forth between applications. Coda gives you one place to work with all your web pages and sites.

Happiness is having a browser that doesn't suck

Oh, it's been a long and unhappy story, these browser wars. Everyone knows that Internet Explorer has lots of serious problems. Here's a collection of happy stories about people that have switched to a better way to browse the Internet: Browse Happy