Posts Tagged ‘Linux’

Mission: Unlikely

And finally we find the reason my blogging stems to a trickle after a few short weeks. I completely run out of interesting things to write about. I even run out of uninteresting things to write about leaving me in a pickle.

I know what I said about blogs with regards to ‘nothing’ but, I just thought I’d point out that the greatest obstacle to me being famous on the intartubez is the fact that I am an extremely boring person.

I think it’s interesting though, that I just updated my LinkedIn profile. It feels weird to be student, 22, and already fairly expected to have some sort of business related web presence. It’s like I’m finally entering the real world. I’m not going to harp on things like privacy and that sort of thing (how I have to hide my almost non-existent binge drinking photos from the internet) but more how much you are expected to show.

In this day and age people like to be able to have a pretty general idea of me before they meet me. Know what I look like, things that I’ve done, and more than one person has told me if I don’t have a profile on X site I should hang up my hat.

But oddly enough I think this is a good thing. Employers kicking your ass because you are an ass on the internet may not be kosher, but I think that in the case of a hiring situation having a picture of someone beyond their polished best ‘I will say what you want me to say so you hire me’ is probably a good thing. You’re giving a job to a person not to a set of credentials — otherwise what’s the point of an interview.

In more schizophrenic news, I tried MeeGo Linux and I owe you a review.

The Bug.

I meant to comment that I have fixed the problem since my last entry but got caught up in other things. So, the problem ended. Basically what happened was the the “kernel” or version of my Fedora upgraded but not my video card drivers. To fix the problem (until updated drivers were avalaible — which are at the time of writing) I had to boot from an older kernel. To do this I simply hit ‘I’ at the boot and picked the second option on the boot list. When the video card driver was avalaible all I did was let it boot normally. Thanks to the guys at Fedora Forum for all their help. I seem to have posed the question properly as they got back to me and were fairly nice about it.

In other news, school, blargh. Well, sort of blargh, maybe like, half blargh. Because I decided to make my minor Computer Science I have to take Math. Which was one of those really terrible ideas I once had. The course is soundly kicking my ass into next month. And the final for it is on the last possible day, that would be April 30th! Which is pretty sucky. The worst part being that I have no idea what is going on in this class. I can only assume it is something appallingly difficult and leave it at that. For fear of my sanity.

I have more to say I think, but I should really be doing some school readings. Later.

Grub — not just for dinner anymore

Not surprisingly as soon as I start getting settled in Fedora I get a big huge ka-boom moment where I thank the lord that I have two internal hard drives and on of them has good old slow, but pretty effective Windows Vista on it while I figure out how to make Fedora obey again. I do love a challenge but sometimes I have a moment of wondering why Windows is not still my primary OS. I know how Windows works, I can generally make it do stuff. With Fedora I am a complete dumbass.

But I love a challenge, so here I am about to put my Fedora drive back in to fix it. For the sake of making this entry semi-useful I’ll outline what happened and the fix I was given lest someone else around here stumble upon the same problem. I doubt it since no one reads my blog, but hey, maybe writing it out will help me.

Basically, what I did seemed like a good idea at the time. On Fedora a little orange iconishthing pops up from time to time that says ‘Hey, you need to update this sucker.’ Generally I do just that and everything works like a dream, however, this time a large problem occured. Upon rebooting my machine I noticed that my resolution on the login screen was weird. Thinking this to be some sort of thing the update was twaeking I attempted to log in. Only, well, all I’d get to see was a white screen and nothing else, though it seemed to have loaded alright. So, at this point yesterday we get a resounding sigh followed by a whispered ‘Aw, fuck me.’ before asking my room mate if I can use her computer for just a moment. She grudgingly obliges and I throw myself upon the mercy of the uber nerds.

I shall pause here to illustrate some details for the non-nerds out there. On the internet there is a geek hierarchy, a kind of feudal fifedom of various kingdoms and suchlike. Those with more knowlage rank higher than the morons who don’t even know what their GUI is, and couldn’t put in a new ram chip if their very soul depended upon it. I am around the middle ground generally, maybe lower middle, regardless. Because of this when I don’t know what to do I must fling myself upon the mercy of the great nerds.

Some people may think this is funny. And perhaps a hyperbole, but it is no such thing. Asking the internet for help is serious business, sometimes you get lucky and the great nerds are benevolent, granting you at least a grudging shove in the right direction, but should you offend them, or should they be in a not-so-great mood your request for help leads to naught but scorn. Should you point out you were simply asking for help and that there is no need to get touchy about anything you will be treated to group scorn. As the great nerds may insult your intelligence as they see fit, but you, pitiful help-asker must take all the scoffing and patronizing they can dish out.

Don’t get me wrong, most of the time I get helpful and concise messages from the great nerds, but this is mainly because I google first, say please, and thank you, type in proper English and usually know how to describe my problem. I also display a willingness to learn which I am told goes a long way. But sometimes, no matter how polite you are, the nerds feel mean.

So, now I have a solution, the problem is the driver for my graphics card isn’t yet compatible with my update, so I need to hit shift on booting and boot from an older update (or kernel). Hopefully I will then be able to use my machine until such a time as my graphics card is compatible, which should be soon they say. Crisis aborted. Phew.

In other news I beat Fable: The Lost Chapters, I played as Good and let me tell you I was a bad ass motherfucker despite playing a hero.

Fonts, fonts, fonts, fonts… fonts.

Okay, so, the latest leg of my Linux adventures is finding a way to install normal, downloaded free true type fonts on my lovely little Fedora machine in order to get webdesign without using the same six default-tastic fonts. My luck has been grim to say the very least. It’s just one more of those things you take for granted on Windows I suppose. Easy installation of fonts. I find it strange that no one else seems to find this to be much of a problem. Though, I guess nerds don’t speak pretty font. Regardless, I continue my quest, I would be pissed if I had to pop in my windows hard drive for something this trivial.

Anyways, I have totally lost my train of thought to CSI: New York. Later.

Note Taking

It’s a new semester, and I’ve decided my three semester goals are going to be to eat healthy, go for a walk every day and have both a hard copy and a digital copy of all of my school notes.

For me, the tactile act of actually writing my notes out makes me way more likely to remember what I’m writing, whereas typing means I might actually be able to read them again one day. I have yet to find a Linux app to take notes the way I want to though, so, my quest continues. I’ve tried a few different things, like Tomboy Notes, and am playing with NoteCase, so we’ll see what happens.

The problem I’ve been having with good old Linux is there are lots of apps, and they all seem to do little bits of what I want, but none of them do exactly what I want them to. I ran into this same problem with music players, and even now I’m not settled on one, rather I’m using Rhythmbox until Songbird supports my music player — though I’ve been going to war with Banshee it’s just not going to do what I want.

All of my webprojects seem to have grinded to a halt for whatever reason. No creativity left in my brain to speak of. I’m hoping to finish turning the Regulus Black Fanlisting into a character fansite within the week. I plan on doing this to all of my fanlistings, because I figure it would be nice to start a trend of having Fanlistings that actually have a purpose. I have two on deck right now, Felix the Cat and Timothy McGee (NCIS), but I’m feeling design challenged right now.

Thanks to Amber and Crystal for the comments, sometimes being mean feels fun. =)

Freaking GIMP

One thing I didn’t really think about with my whole OS switch is the compatibility with my single most favourite program. Paint Shop Pro 8. I think everyone finds a graphics franchise they like and they stick to it. Which is fine, don’t get me wrong, but now I’m stuck in a bit of a pickle, I can’t design websites right now to save my life. Not that I was the graphics queen before, but this certainly hasn’t helped. I shudder to say the Magical Mystery Tour Fanlisting is finished because it looks terrible, I ripped off the Felicity Worthington layout, and stuck a new (ugly) header up there.

I’m looking at Empty cage now knowing it needs a new look and simple a lot of tender loving care that I wish I had the time and energy for. Of all my courses you’ll be pretty surprised to know that it is Latin that is kicking my ass the hardest. And beyond Empty Cage, I want to update and optimise (to the point of validation) all of my websites, and shrine them… and… and… make more. I’ve also, as I mentioned before promised websites to two other people. I feel bad that I don’t have the bug to do anything website right now. Blargh.

To be honest I don’t feel much like doing anything. I log on the internet, the hours vanish, but I just feel a bit tired of… stuff…

There you go. certified crazy. I want to just be as smart as I know I am capable of but I’m too damn lazy for it. I think I need to get more exercize, let my brain move a bit more. Make myself more alert and stuff, I felt smarter when I was in Europe and on the go.

The Missing Mistress

I have been an absolutely terrible webmistress lately, and for that I apologise to the un-viewers that I have. Normally I’m an addictive website owner, but lately I haven’t been feeling it. Not that anything will be happening to Empty Cage, I love this little domain too much for that. But sluggishness in everything should be expected.

Despite the well meant advice from Amber (I really do listen to everything you say and take all of your advice) I will be hosting some people on here. There is way more space then I could ever possibly use. I won’t have a whole page and applications and stuff, but people like Josephine and Vanessa (as well as anyone I know in life) are more than welcome to ask me for some room. Strangers can too, I suppose, but I’ll be kind of picky.

For current web projects, I’m working on a website for the UPSA (my University’s Undergraduate Philosophy Association) and Shadow RO, a Ragnarok Server I’m on. Likely these two layouts will be very similar. Then of course the Magical Mystery Tour Fanlisting. I just need to work out the details. From there it’s all about Cursed and Empty Cage.

Check out my new Linux guide though.