It’s done, and whoo boy does it fly.

Ubuntu 6.06 AKA Dapper Drake (how appropriate) is now installed on Magnus. I’m posting this after installing a nifty little LJ program called Drivel, and it seems just as sweet as Semagic or XJournal. Also, Ubuntu’s application installer is crazily user friendly. It even adds shortcuts in the menu system.

Besides keeping up on the dishes, I’ve also figured out how to make pizza sauce. Definitely having pizza tonight. :)

And now, without further ado, my horoscope:

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): A few people look at the world through rose-colored glasses. Many, on the other hand, peer out through crap-colored glasses. Both are unable to see the world as it really is, but instead allow their perceptions to be filtered through a distorted lens. Your assignment, Taurus, is to take off the colored glasses–whatever hue they may be–so that you can gaze at your surroundings with fresh, lucid, fixation-free eyes.

Wil Wheaton’s blog linked to a really good article that addresses who really (p)0wns your computer. The local media shouldn’t just be scaring the standard users about the “Evil Hackers,” but perhaps also the Evil Corporations.

Article is here.

Electrical charge once again graces my iBook’s battery. Cue the huge sigh of relief.

I have caught up on all laptop-related things that were behind, AFAIK.

Anybody know someone that might want to purchase some old V:TES/Jyhad cards? I found an old card box full of them. I’m not really interested in playing any more, and would rather sell them. If worse comes to worse, I’ll organize and price them, and see what collectors/players want them. As it stands, I have no idea what’s in there, except that some are actual Jyhad cards.

On an unrelated note, does anybody know where I could find some inexpensive PC133 SDRAM, preferably in the 512 MB variety, which would technically fall under the SO-DIMM qualification. Unfortunately, 512 megs is the highest capacity ever made for PC133 RAM. I wonder if anybody ever made any higher-end RAM (in 1 GB size) that could scale back to PC133.

Any ideas?

I’d also like to note that I’d be nowhere near as productive as I’ve been if not for superglue.

I’d broken my good headphones, and my backup pair suck. Luckily, the break had been clean enough that the broken edges mated evenly, and superglue (teflon, people!) bonded them together perfectly.

I spent a week with those crap headphones. IPM is so much better when one can -hear- the bass.

So, I’ve found the wonderfulness that is the Griffin iMate. I am one step closer to being able to sync my Newton on my iBook.

My question is this: Any of you Mac afficianados out there still have an old ADB cable lying around? I can get them for a decent price on eBay, but I’d rather rid someone of something just collecting dust in the basement, and put it to good use.

Oh, I’ve already tried MSU Surplus (AKA MSU Salvage). No go. Though they did have a beige G3 and an Indigo iMac that were reputed to work. Heh.

Compaq Presario 1622

– Damn Small Linux : failure
– Knoppix : failure
– Ubuntu : failure

After Ubuntu couldn’t even access the floppy drive, I got suspicious. Re-loaded Windows, and got the same exact memory error that started all of this off. So, this all points to a slow, but sure, motherboard failure.

Kinda like my desktop.

Anyway, I’ll be parting it out. Old laptop RAM, the battery, the PC cards, and the chassis/motherboard/screen/wossname for parts. eBay, unless I get a local offer. Anybody interested? ;)

Compaq Presario from Work

I don’t have it in front of me, or I would have posted the model number.

Due to errors on the hard drive, the Windows XP partition could not be re-sized. So, I wiped the whole thing, created a 15 gig partition for each OS, and easily loaded Windows XP and Ubuntu. Ran a file-checker in each OS to mark off the bad sectors of each partition.

It’s all packed up and ready to be given back to Tom. Yay for field laptop!

iBook
– Wallpaper : procured
– USB mouse : procured and installed
– USB Hub : procured and installed
– Printer : switched over to USB, connected to USB hub, and installed.
– Scanner : Tossed the old parallel port Mustek in the trash. It was dead, and I had the ninepence. Anyway, connected the new HP ScanJet 3500c (thanks to Jody, the mother in law, for that xmas gift!) through the USB hub, and it installed smoothly.

To Do
– eBay off the 11 year old Presario’s parts.
– Gut the old desktop and eBay the extra sound card and RAM.
– Procure internal-to-external conversion kits. I want to turn both 30GB hard drives and the CD-R/W to firewire, and connect them to the iBook that way.
– Figure out what in the blazes is wrong with this wireless/wired combo router from Netgear, and get that installed.

Crap. I did not intend to type this much. I’ve gotten some writing done today, but I’ll wait to update on that. Sleep calls.