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dilbert
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Name: Dilbert
Country: United States
Gender: Male
Expertise: Engineering and Procrastination
Occupation: Engineering
Industry: Computers (Software)
Message: message me
Member Since:
9/19/2001
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| To say I haven't posted in awhile would be an understatement. What can
I say, things have been going pretty well. Wow, when did all these word
processing buttons start working when you are in firefox. That is pretty cool.
They surely were not there the last time I posted. Anyway, I
started trying to blog at my own domain for awhile. I didn't do that
too long. Then I kind of tried out Yahoo 360°. Didn't do that long
either and never really made it public either so really only members of
my immediate family ever read it. I guess I just got tired of blogging.
I have still been writing just not posting it on the web for a world of
strangers to see. I still check into Xanga from time to time to check
up on Munkee and Sean and Pink Moon. But I rarely read anything that
isn't either directly on my very small list of subscriptions or a link
from their comments section. I am not sure why, just haven't been in
the mood I guess.
Maybe its just the idea that once you hit that submit button, what you
write is just so beyond your control. There was a girl murdered down
here about a month or so ago. I guess she was a blogger. Looks like her
blog was a part of her whole disappearance. Looks like they may have
caught her killer because of it too. From her blog to his blog and
things they both wrote. I guess I just realized that everything you
write and type in here goes out to the cyberworld and gets logged to
some hard drive somewhere and you don't have any control over it once
you hit that submit button. Even when I put a blog on my own domain,
Long after I deleted it, it is still readable via Google's cache. The
cache they have of the blog is from January. Even though the website
and domain are gone and have been for some time, all the information is
still there. How long do they keep it around? Its been 9 months
already. I don't know, it just kind of bothers me. Even the sites that
are password protected. Its out there somewhere on some server. It kind
of gives me the willies.
So, I probably won't be blogging too much anymore. Just in case you hadn't figured that out already.
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| So another year has gone by. Sometime last week I had a birthday. Where
do the years go. My wife is really bugging me to go get a physical. I
mean to, I really do. I just have to find a doctor and set up an
appointment. Last year when I turned 35, I promised I would get one,
but somehow the whole year snuck by and I never got it.
The kids, and their mom, baked me a cake. It looked like it was run
over by a car, but it tasted pretty good. The kids were very proud of
themselves. I think it was the best cake I have ever had.
So, when I was trying to fix my computer a few weeks back, I had a bit
of an epiphany. I was looking at my laptop which was basically dead and
could barely boot windows and I saw that sticker on it that said it was
designed for Windows and I thought to myself, yeah, but it works better
with Linux. I thought, someone should make a sticker that says that.
Well, it has been floating around in the back recesses of my mind just
waiting and waiting and I finall took it out of my head and put it down
on paper. Well, on a computer screen anyway. This what I cam up with. I
am not a graphics artist by any stretch of the imagination, but I
thought it came out pretty good.
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| I was driving home on the freeway yesterday when I saw this bumper sticker on a minivan.
Choose life
Your mother did!
And I thought to myself, how do they know my mother had a choice? I
guess they are assuming only people born after 1973 are reading it? Or
maybe they are too naive to realize not everyone has always had a
choice? Or, maybe they just don't care.
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| My XP laptop that I use for work has been flaky the last few weeks. It
finally reached a point of almost being unusable. I think it started
with a screwed up install of Norton Antivirus. It had come with some
trial version and then the company had a corporate version isntalled
over the top of the trial version. Xp didn't like this. This in turn,
start causing it to lock up and the only way to get out of it was with
hard power down resets and this messed up the whole OS.
I realized there was some serious problems and started trying to
archive the hard drive to another system, but it was too late. Nothing
I tried seemed to work. The screens would hang and the whole system
would just seem to lock up.
So, how do you save a windows system that doesn't want to save itself?
With Linux! I booted a Linux LiveCD version of Knoppix. I was able to
share the NTFS drive over the network and copy it to another system. It
is slow going because of all the corrupted files. Each time it hits a
currupted file, it takes 2 or 3 minutes before deciding to move on.
But, those files that are not corrupted are getting copied and the
system has been running now for more than 24 hours without crashing
once. So much for it being a hardware issue. I have played with Linux
off and on for several years. It just continually gets better and
better. I have wasted Days and days and days in the past couple months
trying to recover Windows systems that have self destructed. First it
was the blue screen of death on NT system at boot after installing a
service pack update. Final recovery was done using Norton Ghost. I
couldn't even recover the system with the original Windows CD. Then my
home PC was having lots of issues which seemed to get resolved with a
system file check. Took me a long time to find out about that though.
Hours searching on the net. Now it is my work XP system getting
corrupted by the very program that is supposed to protect it from
Viruses. I tried to uninstall it with the uninstall program and it
didn't uninstall cleanly and well, things just went downhill from there.
When the time comes for my next personal computer, not one I have to
use for work, because my company decides what that will be. The next
one I buy for myself though, and my family, I am pretty sure it won't
be Windows. I haven't decided if I will use Linux, or I may get myself
a mac. I have heard good things about their latest operating system
which is built off BSD a unix based os like Linux is.
It is pretty sad when an operating system (Windows) can't recover
itself, but by booting with a free operating system (knoppix) you can
do what Windows couldn't do for itself. That is just a sad state of
affairs. And where would Windows be without third party applications
now. Would Windows even be usuable without antivirus software made by
other companies? It doesn't seem like it. I know Microsoft didn't write
all the virus that plague their systems, but they also do nothing,
nothing at all to protect their users from them. It isn't really their
fault that Norton Antivirus may have messed up my hard drive. But, if I
didn't need Norton Antivirus in the first place, it woulrn't have
happened.
My first couple of computers when I was in high school were Apples. I
even took my Apple ][ + with me my freshman year of college. Then the
PC and Windows took over and they have reigned supreme for a long long
time. I have had maybe 5 or 6 primary windows PC's in that time, three
of wich I am still using. This new version of their OS that is coming
out better be pretty damn amazing and solid as a rock, because I don't
think I am the only one getting sick of them and there are real
alternatives available now. Better alternatives. I have heard it said
again and again that macs are expensive, but when I add up all my last
time, the aggravation the white hairs, the extra software for antivirus
and spyware. Macs are starting to look pretty cheap.
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| So our dog has been given his freedom by the vet. He still doesn't walk
quite right, but he can get around and he is very happy to be out of
his crate.
An update on the Virgin mobile prepaid phone deal. It has worked out so
well for us. We are saving a small fortune. My wife hasn't gotten
anywhere close to the minimum of about $7 a month. So instead of $37 a
month we are now paying about $7 for the exact same service. That is
what we use to pay just for taxes and charges and all those fees are
included in the $7 a month.
I did notice, however, that Cingular now offers their prepaid plan with
unlimited mobile to mobile calling include for a minimum charge of $25
every 90 days. I tried ATT here though and there is something about
where my house is located that prevents me from getting a signal here.
Having that mobile to mobile included for free is a good thing for sure
though. Maybe Virgin might try the same thing. Maybe someday they will
get the signal up a little better here or re-aim their antenna so it
catches my house. For some reason it just barely misses us. You lose
the signal as soon as you turn down our road. I have no touble at all
with the Sprint/Virgin mobile phone.
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