Off-Hook

SATA Harddrives, Gigabit LAN… Cool stuff, I know, and it represents the standard for future PCs, but is it too new for the current operating systems? Is it possible that hardware manufacturers are turning out cutting-edge equipment faster than OS programmers can integrate it into their kernels? Oh yeah, You better believe it!

I site 2 OS’s: Windows XP and Linux. More specifically, Fedora Core 2 for amd64 and Mandrake 10.0.

So what’s the problem? Well– Windows XP refuses to recognize the new 3Com gigabit LAN integrated onto the Albatron 8X800 Pro II Mainboard, so if you’re using that mainboard with Windows XP, know now that you’ll have to fill up one of those PCI slots with a redundant network card.

Both Fedora and Mandrake will hang on this piece of hardware, too, although it’s possible that this will be remedied in the upcoming Fedora Core 3. I will post as soon as I find out. Regardless, SATA harddrives have so far proved too new for the OS programmers to keep up. Hopefully, the IBM Hitachi HDDs are high on the list of SATA drivers for Linux kernels.

You’ll have these problems with all 3 I’ve mentioned at this point. The latest stable version of Debian Linux (“sarge”) seems to be able to handle all the newest hardware, but it’s a monster to install, and there do seem to be some problems associated with the latest unstable version of debian (“sid”), which you’ll need to take full advantage of a 64-bit processor.

Remember the old “Have a penny, Leave a penny; Need a penny, Take a penny” dish at your local convenience store or chain restaurant? Well how interesting would it be if the concept was used virtually for gmail invites? Wonder no longer– It’s been done!

Check the link in the title of this post. It takes you to a site where you can get the enigmatic gmail invite so that you, too, can use gmail beta (google’s new web-based email soon to go public release). Even in “beta,” it’s more than a match for competitors like hotmail and yahoo, offering 100M of space, comparable features (plus some new stuff), and free, of course (or I would not recommend it here).

An excellent idea. All my gmail friends and I always have extra invites that simply expire. We’ve none else to send them to! Now they don’t have to just waste away, and even more folks can get in on this GREAT free email service! Check it out. It’s free, it’s not spam, and now it’s easy. Hey– It’s Google… What MORE do ya need to know?

Here’s the case for my new ‘puter.

Yeah, I got it a few months ago, and it’s still incomplete but it’s worth showin’ off a little. That’s a nice little temp gauge on the front. Here’s the pros and cons of this case:

Pros–

(1) Pre-modded to look FANTASTIC

(2) Easy to take apart and put back together

(3) Nice built-in doors for 2 ide optical drives, so you don’t HAVE to match colors

(4) Lightweight and lots of places to install fans

(5) Comes with 350w power supply

Cons–

(1) Temp gauge is Farenheit, only. Celcius is just easier to read, but this is not major.

(2) Knockout for firewire port in front, but front ports built into a block attached to face panel prevents the installation of said firewire port

(3) Front audio not equipped with mobo connectors, so must route out the back and back into the audio card outputs

(4) Blowhole fan is set too far back to install a 2- or 3- fan power supply

(5) Comes with 350w power supply

Some of those cons are easily worked around and some can even be interpreted as “pros” depending upon the hardware you purchase to fill it, so don’t hold any of this against the case. It really does look great. Once everything is assembled, I’ll post benchmarks to see if it performs as good as it looks.

If you want one, too, or just want to compare it to some other cases, here’s where you can find it on newegg.

I guess I’ve been a little behind on these, so I’ve just caught up. Here’s a synopsis of what I’ve updated on my personal machines (open source and freeware, of COURSE!):

Filzip is now at release 3.2. An excellent alternative to winzip, and it works with almost all varieties of compression utilities, including gzip, tar, blackhole and even rar!

Irfanview is now at release 3.92. It is, perhaps, the greatest, most versatile image viewer available. Most folks pay for viewing software that is this versatile and user-friendly, but it has become one of the all-time most downloaded progs on the net.

Firefox is now in Preview Release pending 1.0 status. After downloading this myself, I don’t recommend updating to it yet if you are using the current stable release. Most of the existing themes and extensions are not yet compatible with it, so it will only frustrate current firefox users. However– If you’re still IE-dependant, I’ll pray for you, and suggest that you download the preview release of Firefox immediately and start enjoying the web again! Won’t be long before Firefox overtakes IE, altogether, anyways. See for yourself here at “Spread Firefox”. Seems everyone’s sick of IE’s failure to comply with W3C internet standards.

Gaim has just recently, at long last, achieved 1.0 status! I highly recommend this multi-server chat client, which accesses AIM, MSNIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber, etc. It’s been packaged with numerous Linux distros and is also offered in a windows port, which I use daily with great success. It interacts with the standard proprietary AIM, MSN and Yahoo software wonderfully, including file transfer options, something most other multi-server progs can’t claim (like Trillian), and unlike some of those OTHER major progs, achieving 1.0 status didn’t translate into turning their backs on the open source community. They remain true to the standards that got them this far. We all know the same can’t be said of other, similar programs that came up the same way… wink, wink!

Anyways, Give these progs a try if you haven’t already, or upgrade when you get a chance, these are always improving and provide tons of user-friendly functionality. Winblows would have you believe you have to pay for that. Don’t believe the hype!

Now I was all upset yesterday about not being able to simply download Mandrake 10 for amd64. I got my heart set on Mandrake because (1) it has lots of easy-to-use apps that make it an easy, logical alternative to Winblows and (2) it has an AWESOME installer gui that makes clean installation of the os just as easy, if not easier than any Winblows OS available. I know there are other distros out there that are designed for 64-bit systems, but they’re either more expensive than Mandrake, or much more difficult to install with fewer user-friendly apps bundled.

Then, I go back to take another look at Fedora, a fairly new stepchild of Red Hat designed solely with open-source code and software on its own core. Everyone knows about Red Hat. It’s practically synonymous with Linux. It was one of the first realistic alternatives to Winblows on the same hardware (relatively user-friendly). Well, Red Hat has gone server-side and has a nice pricetag associated with it (hey– if you got a server an’ the money, it’s worth it), and older versions of Red Hat are no longer being updated. But Fedora has most of the apps that were common to Red Hat, including its wonderfully user-friendly installer, “Anaconda,” and it’s constantly being updated, and it’s totally free and open-source, AND there’s even a 64-bit version of it available for FREE, too!

Basically, with most factors such as hardware compatibility (drivers, etc.), user-friendly gui (kde and gnome + x), and a VERY user-friendly installation gui, I can’t see any good reason to buy the Mandrake 64-bit OS when I can get the Fedora 64-bit OS free. Color me impressed. When the rest of my hardware is in, I will install it. If it’s nothing but heartache, I will go back and install Mandrake (if I must use 32-bit, I will go Mandrake– It is still, IMO, the best transitional distro). I will update again when either the Fedora or Mandrake surpasses their current level of goodness or I actually get an opportunity to install it on my own hardware.

Ahh… Finally a moment to write again. It’s no secret that I’m a Linux Mandrake fanatic. A simply elegant OS with all the advantages and abilities of an open-source OS and great open-source applications on top of what has been hailed as the most user friendly gui outside of OSX, KDE! I recently downloaded the ISOs for the official 10.0 release and am very pleased at the short amount of time it has taken. This particular distro has a few advantages over other distros including ease of installation (just as easy to install as Winblows– if not easier), lots of popular applications (like Kate, Konquerer, and Wine), and, most importantly, it’s still FREE!!!

Now it’s that last advantage that is of some concern to me now… the fact that it is still currently free and available for download online. You see, paying members qualify for some neat extras, like an endless supply of drivers (this is an EXTRA?!!!) and enhanced versions of the latest release (10.0+), as well as early access to the next release. The biggest advantage, however, of being a silver member of the Mandrake Club is that it is the only way you’ll get to download the amd64-friendly version of Mandrake, and membership is $130/year. Oh yeah– You can buy it retail if you don’t want to join the club. Guess how much it costs? That’s right, $130. Sound familiar? Does that sound like open-source to you? Hey– They need some money to keep this level of quality, right? I can dig that. I just wish they’d stick to donations… but how many of us actually donate?

Aww… I’m mostly just bummed ’cause I’m building a 64-bit system and know I won’t be able to take advantage of a really good 64-bit OS without having to pay for it. I shouldn’t pick on Mandrake, I suppose, but they’re my favorite. They’re not the only ones charging for a 64-bit OS, of course. Plus– There are distros out there that are 64-bit friendly and are yet still free, like Fedora, but Fedora isn’t as user-friendly as Mandrake. Oh well… You feel my disappointment. I still love you, Mandrake, but I won’t give you $130 (yet).

I hope everyone had as much fun over the Labor Day weekend as I did! The wife and kid and I packed up for a weekend in Dallas, TX. We used to do this more often, but now that we’re on the other side of Louisiana from Texas, these little trips require a bit more planning (what was a 3-hour drive is now a 5-hour drive).

So off to Dallas we go. We meet the mother-in-law (a doting grandmother and shopping expert) in Haughton, then on to Canton where we stop for a few minutes and acquire a puppy to be picked up on the way back through on Monday. Then to Grapevine where we shop at what has to be one of the all-time most incredible outlet malls in existence. All indoors, real wood floors, big screen tvs from the ceilings every 50 feet or so, awesome dining (we ate at the Rainforest Cafe), and shops varying from the a gap outlet to “off-fifth” and “off-rodeo” to a huge Virgin Records outlet. There was even a Nautica outlet. Lunch at the Rainforest Cafe is a MUST if you end up anywhere near one.

Mother-in-Law wanted to use the opportunity to puchase a bonafide desired christmas gift, so she gets me this AWESOME leather jacket (very, very nice straight, black jacket with removable liner). We turn in at Amerisuites then it’s straight to Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington! My daughter, though only 5-and-a-half years old (and she will add that “and-a-half” for you if you forget it) LOVES the big thrill rides. She comes away from SFOT a veteran of the Lost Mine Train coaster, the Shock Wave, Judge Roy Scream, Roaring Rapids and some other minor rides. Her only complaint that she is not tall enough to ride the Texas Chute-Out and Superman’s Tower of Power. She is the kindergardner who does not know fear.

The wife and I are now veterans of Superman’s Tower of Power and Batman, The Ride. Batman, The Ride was pretty cool, but the 30-second thrill is a little overshadowed by the 1+ hour wait in line. Still, the suspended coaster twists you every-which-way and leaves you slightly disoriented. Right next door is Mr. Freeze. Just watching this monstrosity will give you chills. The wife and I chickened out this year, but I will ride it next time I’m at the park. Superman’s Tower of Power was very cool! It blasts you upwards around 40-45 mph, bounces you around a little up there, then reels you up to drop you at the same speed (if not a little faster). You get quite a view of the park from 325 feet straight up! I highly recommend it.

We had planned to go to the Dallas Zoo Monday, but the weather cancelled those plans and we ended up shopping some more. I finally got to go to Fry’s. All I can say is HALLELUJAH! This is a geek’s shopping mecca! If you are a geek, make your pilgrimage plans now, cause Fry’s has everything you can find at any computer fair and MORE! Into case modding? They’ve got it. More memory? Got it. Unlimited variety of mobos, cpus, cases, power supplies– gotta have sata power? How about hard-to-find sata harddrives? Care to see what Doom 3 plays like on a 64-bit hoss with 3 gig of Ram? It’s all there at Fry’s. Yes… I’ll be going back there. Oh yeah– and we went to Foley’s and Town East Mall for a little while, too.

Overall, a VERY enjoyable and satisfying, albeit short vacation. It’s been so long since I’ve been to Six Flags. I’m looking forward all the more to going again (and next time we’ll bring friends!).

Google’s answer to Hotmail, Yahoo, and all those other free webmail services. This service is so cool! No tiny storage limits on these bad boys… You get 1 gig of email storage. You can archive old messages. I haven’t yet experimented with limits on attachment sizes– That will be interesting and fun. Viewing messages online is pretty cool. It looks almost like chat archives or something. When you get replies, they are displayed “google-style” as a thread, and you can easily look above the current email message to previous messages in the thread and open them as you like. You also have labels instead of folders. Your mail can be anywhere on the server and accessed on demand first by your address, then by identifiers like labels, and organized accordingly. So Google doesn’t have to waste server space maintaining folders per user. No wonder they offer such unheard-of limits!

Anyways– It’s not generally available yet, so my buddy BKW and I got with a gmail group on stumbleupon and the exceptionally nice folks there extended us a couple invitations. They actually extended 3 to me cause I asked too many folks. So I set up 2 for myself thinking I can just change the name in the address later and give it to someone else. Well, what do ya know– Can’t be done (not yet, anyways). So I give the 3rd to my other buddy, R-Rabbit, and have 2 addresses for myself, 1 active and 1 “not-so-much.”

So to make a long story longer, I’ve been waiting to get my own invites to send out. My friend, R-Rabbit gets 6 as soon as she signs up. She sends 1 to another friend, GreenEggs, and SHE gets 6 of her own right off the bat. So BKW an’ me are wonderin’ what we did to rate not gettin’ invites in all this time we’ve had accounts. Then, today, I get 6… AND I get 6 on the other address, so I’ve got like 12 INVITES!!!

Hey– If you read this blog, and you want an invite for a gmail address, email me at wirelessmike@gmail.com.