Author: donkey

Husband, Father, Bunny fan, Polibernial Mandorpulatorist, Geek, Amateur musician, Aspiring photographer, Motorcyclist. #VZ800K5  Sometimes, I neologise.
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off with the xandros, on to eeebuntu

Wandering around the net looking for EeePC information, I came across this.

Ok, that and the fact you can’t effectively secure the sudo access on this wonderful machine, made me have at look at options.

Right now, I’m using eeebuntu – the Netbook Remix Edition.

Very nice – particularly the UME launcher….

Startup and shutdown is a *tiny* bit slower than the standard Xandros install – but not so much as I thought it might be. In fact, once it’s going, general use is actually quicker (like starting OpenOffice writer etc). Though, that could be because it’s the 2.4 version rather than the 2.0 version…

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avoiding strife

Proverbs 20:3 “It is to a man’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel.”

I’m sure we could all do with more of this in the world. Not the cowardly kind of not talking about anything, but just not seeking for strife.

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Of netbooks and laptops

So, yesterday morning, my shiny new EeePC 900 arrived. One of the first few in the country no less. Very cool.

After having played with 701 series for some time through work, I decided that I’d really like one of those as multi-purpose kind of 2nd home PC cum roadtrip toolbox. I decided to go for a white one as I wanted something different from all those darkly coloured PCs and always had a soft spot for the white Apple hardware. Plus, wifey likes the pearlescent white finish. 🙂

I’m staying with the Xandros linux OS for now, though I’m watching Ubuntu’s netbook remix with interest. That would be rather cool as I use Ubuntu at home (~7yrs) and work (~3yrs) at the moment.

So far, I’ve loaded up some useful work type stuff (nxclient from nomachine.com, pptpconfig, wine+VNC viewer – the enterprise one with AD authentication, bluetooth pairing to use the Palm 750v as a 3G modem) and some more personal stuff (GnomeSword, mplayer).

The quick among you may have noticed the bluetooth reference – no, it’s not built in. I purchased a wee micro-USB dongle for ~$25 off of trademe – works a charm too.

Watch this space….

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Security and feeling safe.

I’m at a regional managers meeting in Hamilton at the moment. At tea tonight, I was talking with a guy about a country he visited about three years ago.

He relayed how there were armed guards escorting him around as the company he worked for had had staff held hostage by local people to extort money from them. So there was a lot of real in your face type security – the guards, airport type luggage and people scanning at hotels etc.

The next thing he said intrigued me and I instantly saw an interesting parallel.

He said, “I decided I’d never go back there again – I just didn’t feel safe.”

I thought it ironic that one would (quite rightly) feel unsafe in a place where there was a huge security presence – all these extra, and very obvious, protocols and safeguards. In fact, the very presence of these things created a sense of things not being safe.

Amazing how millions of Windows users have yet to identify this…..

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Flavours…..

We (my wife and I) have recently come to the conclusion that we’re not entirely pentecostal afterall.

We’re also not entirely conservative. Perhaps you could say we’re ‘preservatives’.

Certainly goes along with the whole ‘salt’ thing…. 😉

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life, etc (cont’d)

Well, it’s been just over a month and I still choke up a bit thinking about Granddad…I guess that’ll happen for a while. I seem to be more sensitive to tear-jerky moments in movies at the moment too.

A new manager has been appointed at work which is great. Said manager has no IT experience or knowledge whatsoever which necessitated a new position – Team Leader, IT. I managed to get appointed to that role.

Interesting times ahead….

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life etc…

So, my Granddad passed away recently. He was a day off of 91 on the day of his funeral. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to Dunedin in time to see him before he went.

Rather upsetting really – but it was lovely to catch up with family, and spend some time with Grandma before returning home.

Dunedin, and the South Island in general, is a beautiful place. For some reason, though my wife and I have never lived there, Dunedin feels like home. I suspect that we will be living there at some point in the future.

While away, I found out my boss resigned – and his boss would like me to be acting manager in between him leaving and a new manager starting. All rather daunting – but a good opportunity to try something different on for size.

Maybe it’s time to move ‘up’ from being a techie? We shall see…..

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interesting vista….

Just helping a friend set up a new PC he bought. Brand new dual-core HP – nice piece of kit for an off the shelf thing.

Took an age for Vista to configure itself and be ready to start tweaking and installing stuff. Actually was quicker to boot an Ubuntu live CD, repartition the hard disk and install a whole operating system (and more!).

Rather interesting I thought.

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Renew the wonder…

I read this over at Our Daily Bread this morning and felt challenged by it.

I’m constantly amazed how these guys thousands of years ago were going through stuff that is exactly what people still go through today (talking about me here!). The impersonal structure of religiosity, the filling up of ones day with many things and the constant sapping of ones spiritual passion.

Back to basics – love God above all else, love one another. Should it really be as hard as mankind tends to make it?

I don’t think so.

If it means anything to you, ask Jesus to renew the wonder of Him (our first love) today, right now even.

If it doesn’t mean anything to you, well, that’s a whole other story then eh!? I pray you continue to journey towards the wonder that He is.

Bless ya
donkey