7/14/09

Well, I got the Linux laptop onto the internot last night. I wound up running a LAN cable from the router in mom’s room to the laptop in my room. Going through the two closets wasn't a problem, the hassle was the intervening bathroom. I gave thought to poking through in mom’s closet and going behind the tub to the existing hole for the plumbing in my closet but I couldn't really see a path once I looked in the plumbing hole. I noticed another existing hole up high in the wall where I'd run some speaker wires through from my closet. I decided, “Who looks up when in the bathroom?” and poked a hole through to mom’s closet. I ran the cable and hooked it up. Huzzah! It worked. OK, I tested it out before running the cable to make sure I could connect and it worked then. Don't you know how pissed off I'd have been had I run the cable and it didn't work? It wouldn't have been pretty. Anyhoo, I got all of that stuff run and tested and tried out Mozilla Firefox. I'm not going to say, “I’m not a fan,” just yet. It is different. I need to figure out how to surf with it. I may learn to hate it. Who knows? Suffices to say, it does stuff different than Internot Exploiter did. For example, and this is the one that annoys me the most, hitting the “Backspace” button does not take you back one page like it did with IE. I used that all the time in IE. I liked that about IE. I do not like that omission in MF. Perhaps there is another key which will send me back a page. I don't know. I don't know how to find out either. Perhaps I'll stumble onto it one of these days. I know John is going to say to just use the mouse and click on the back arrow. I don't want to run the mouse all over the screen all the time, I want to use the “Backspace” and “Tab” buttons to surf around. It pisses me off and may finally wean me from the internot. We’ll see. OK, “OpenOffice.org Writer” is annoying me a little bit. By the way, that is the Linux equivalent of “Word” if you were wondering. Anyhoo, the auto correct function has a few idiot-syncrasies that... no wait. I'm justifying and over defending Linux. I need to just get on with learning the new system and how it wants things done. It isn't any better (yeah, right!), or worse (as if anything could be) than Windows, except that there aren’t viruses, spyware, and malware out there lurking, waiting to crash my system. At least that’s what I've heard. I don't know, I'm just a Luddite. OK, I'm about to try something. I might regret it but I'm going to hook up my Dingleberry to the laptop with the USB cable and see if it will charge the battery and possibly sync up. Here goes. OK, it looks like I need to load the Dingleberry software. I guess I'll go do that. Hopefully it will work. I'll report later. OK, that didn't work. Here’s the problem, a standard USB only sends out 100mA of current. The Dingleberry wants 500mA. Juan would think that the Dingleberry would just tell the laptop to jump the amperage up when it is plugged in, but no. It is the Dingleberry software that Juan has to load in order for the two machines to talk which tell it to pump up the volume. Yep, the software won’t load since it is Windows based. I went on line on the work computer and Googled “blackberry on Linux,” “charging blackberry with Linux,” and other stuff like that. I found out that there is a fix for the issue but it requires going into the Linux source code and adding some lines. I did a “cut and paste” of the code lines and saved them to a flash drive then transferred that file to the laptop. Now I needed to get into the source code and install the new lines. It was such an easy fix I just couldn't believe it. Yep, take the Dingleberry battery charger out of the box and plug it into the wall. Plug the other end into the phone and, Voila! You’re charging. Yeah, like I'm going into the source code! Psh! I do have the lines in a file in case someone less Luddite than me ever wants to do it. OK, enough about that. I noticed in the newspaper this morning that Alpine Gun Range has the PX4 Storm pistol on sale this week. John also asked if the Hebrew Hammer were still for sale and if so, how much? I told him $350.00 and I'd part with it. OK, I said we could start haggling at that price. I'd buy a PX4 if the Hebrew Hammer sold. I don't really need either one, but they both have things going for them. For instance, the Hebrew Hammer is friggin’ cool, it is a .45 ACP, and... well, I guess that’s about it. Oh, I also already have it. The PX4 on the other hand is friggin’ cool and uses the same magazines as Space Gun II, the CX4 Storm Carbine I have. It is “only” a 9mm though. I'm not sure just what role it would fill, other than backup gun to Big Millie. Perhaps I'll give it some thought. Well, I mean I'll give it some thought as an addition to the Hebrew Hammer, I'll do it for sure if that gun sells. But I already said that. OK, I'm not sure just how different the page length and word count and stuff like that is with this new system, but I've passed a page break. That used to be my default, “Shut the hell up! You’ve said enough.” point so I guess I'll shut the hell up and call it a rant. Woo hoo! No more Windows!