Ubuntu for mothers

Well, at least for mine... Will see how this goes...

Gave my mother the Dell M1330, and after some truly unhappy tests to get Windows 7 Ultra installed on it, decided to get Lucid up & running.
Her usage is really simple and plain typical use for nowadays: web -sans anything special with Flash-, email -Hotmail & Gmail-, some pretty light Office use -word stuff mostly-; an excellent candidate for Ubuntu.

Updates dujour

Last night the crappy internet got on its feet once again, so to speak, so installed updates on Sojourner, the first batch -or at least- the first real important one that got to be installed on the T60.
Things are A Ok after a reboot, and a couple of Suspends.

Thunder, rain, humid & hot

Crappy weather all around... "Spring" is here, so it is expected to rain like hell, and get increasingly hotter as the days go by...
Effing Bs. As. weather.

Without Internet (once again)

Cable modem has been really flacky since Sunday on the afternoon, but it was working, and it was a world of difference with what the 3G modem offers.
But for about 2 hours now it is dead once again, the TX & RX LEDs are having an orgasm of flicker but no sync at all with CABLE.
Guess this time is it, I'll have to wait for the fucking tech guy to come here and hope for the best.

The current Ubuntu desktop

A sunny one this time, can't escape the weather, nor the nightmare that the summer will bring upon us all...

Be afraid

Be very afraid (of the upcoming summer...)

D-Link DIR-601 & SIP problems

Last Friday got a new WiFi router, everything went really smooth when I switched routers, except for one thing, my SIP phone wasn't working.
I have a nice and really cheap Budge Tone 201, and after changing routers it stopped working, I was able to register via SIP to the Asterisk server with the Budge Tone, but I didn't hear anything once I made a call, nor the other party could hear me at all.
The Linux SIP softphone Ekiga -executed from my Ubuntu laptop- did work Ok, tho.

Upgraded the firmware from version:

Current Firmware Version  :  1.00NA
Current Firmware Date  :  Mon, 05 Oct 2009

To version:

Current Firmware Version :  1.02NA
Current Firmware Date :  Thu, 25 Nov 2010

Now the Budge Tone works A Ok and things seems to be just fine.

Cable modem back online

At least for the moment... It is still an attenauator-less connection...
Will see how long does this last...

W/O Internet

Damn you Fibertel!!! Its been 24 hrs now the god damn cable modem went down hill yesterday morning and never got back...
Getting around with a 3G modem and the kindness of strangers (and their open WiFi routers...)
The 3G modem is way too unstable and slow to have a happy browsing experience, luckily there seems to be an open WiFi with an amazing speed available at the moment.

The current Ubuntu desktop

It seems like I haven't posted one of these in quite a while...

Cold, mercyful & lovely cold!

This proved to be completely wrong, luck me... We are experiencing a cold wave; rather soft, but a hell...

New WiFi, new life

Got a new WiFi router from work yesterday.
A nice small, totally plastic D-Link DIR-601, configured it last night without a cinch.
The one I was using, an ancient D-Link Dl-614+ was completely screwed, if you enabled the WiFi Access the thing went down instantly.

God damn spring is here...

Get ready to be fried in a week or two at the most...

Some Perian Love

Got the Perian app up & running, got to get Thor (and its amazing and hugemoungous Cinema Display) to start playing some movies.

Attenuator-less cable modem

Had to take it out of the loop for the time being.
Internet at home was down this morning, with a concert of flickering leds (all of them except the CABLE one, of course...).
Removed the attenuator, and everything popped up to life once again...

T60: Wobbly external monitor w/ Lucid

Hit the first major glitch with the new Sojourner...
If connected to an external monitor, the image looks all wobbly and unstable... Totally unusable, specially if you need to give a presentation.
The solution I found doesn't at all on my box... Googling about this, found what it seems like a solution...

• Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid – Issues with external monitor and Ati Radeon card

But this did not work at all on my Thinkpad T60 with the Radeon Mobility X1400 card.
It looks like I'm royally screwed.

Sojourner got it's VirtualBox

The trusty Win2K VirtualBox image that I've been hauling from box to box for over a two year period got it first usage with the T60, Sojourner's current incarnation.
Other than a little glitch with the network interface upon booting -and easily resolved by visiting the Settings > Network page- everything works A Ok.

Kolchak weekend

Been watching these since last night, and during the Saturday, many of those episodes -and the 2 TV movies- for the first time, and certainly, for the first time in color.
I freaking love it, specially the series.

Ekiga accounts information

Sort of a continuation of this post.
The account info is stored on the file:

$HOME/.gconf/apps/ekiga/protocols/accounts_list

Or you can also edit those thru gconf-tool browsing to the key

/apps/ekiga/protocols/accounts_list

Meet the new Sojourner

Haven't posted a picture of the new Sojourner yet, so here is goes.
The little Thinkpad T60 that could and delivers.

A long summer ahead...

28 degrees and the spring haven't even started yet...
Luckily the humidity is nowhere to be found so, at the moment, the thing is bearable.

Bye bye NVIDIA

Got rid of the problems with NVIDIA on the new Sojourner, actually, I guess I will, since I haven't got any reboot it yet.

Removed the NVIDIA drivers, and then I've been able to start the Desktop Effects w/o any problem.

I'm not a particular fan of the Desktop Effects per se, but I do like (I'm like a junkie actually) the Drop Shadow effect, and I find that Metacity's composite engine is painfully slow when it comes to the most mundane of tasks, like window switching via Alt + Tab.

It is bye bye NVIDIA, but not hello ATI, at least for the moment, I think.

Rollercoaster temperatures

Sort of nice weather... Well, I would prefer a cold, cloudy day; but what a hell, at least the temperature still drops at night.

To boldly wear gaucho boots

About a week ago finished re-watching the first season of Star Trek, or as it is been also called "TOS", or "The Original Series".

I have the remasterized version, the one with digital FX et all, it is somehow strange to see those old episodes once again, but in color (vibrant and richly saturated colors all around) on an ultra sharp resolution (even tho I only have DVD) but, with the same card board sets.

Nevertheless, I loved re-watching it, and already got with me the seasons two and three.

One thing that I really find funny are the boots, those leather gaucho boot that they are using while traversing the Universe.

• Argentinian Gaucho Boots


• Gaucho Clothes

The Left Party Mouse

Moved the cursors from my Ubuntu box to the left.

Even tho I'm not left handed I've always loved left pointing mouse cursor icons, guess it comes from the old Netscape, which had left pointing cursor for the menu option selection.
Besides, I have a mouse cursor shape fetish going on for years...

Basic

I'm using specifically the one called "basic-goofy-black+".
Of course since I hate the text selection cursor, called "xterm" in Gnome, had to do this:

sudo cp xterm xterm.ORIG

sudo cp left_ptr xterm

Other related posts:

• Fade to black


• Adventures in Ubuntu Land: Mouse cursors

The new Sojourner

Got me a "new" lappy today, a used Thinkpad T60.
The idea is to use it as day in, day out work horse, to replace the battered T43 that is starting to show its age nowadays.

The T60 is really amazing, I was a little worried that the speed but from the T43 wasn't really nothing, but the thing is night and day, the same goes regarding the heat and noise emission, the T60 is as cool and silent as a monastery.
As usual, for this quick test moved the the RAM from the late M1330, the T60 only sees 3 GB, no matter if you choose a 64 bits OS, so I have a flapping 1 GB; but what a hell, that RAM came free, and also installed the 500 GB SATA drive that was originally on the M1330 as well.

No fuzz, no trouble, placed it on the T60 and booted straight from it, of course, the T60 doesn't have an NVIDIA card, to it belched and error, but an X Window restart fixed that, and a full blown Gnome desktop started as it should.

Winter is dying

No matter what, the heat is coming... Hopefully it will rain during most of tomorrow, helping to bring back down the temperature a bit, but nevertheless we are screwed.
The 15 minute lasting Spring is around the corner, and whack! summer will cook us.

Farewell, MBP

Sold my MBP this week, and delivered it today.
Sad to say, but it won't be missed, because of Snow Leopard most of all, hopefully the new owner will make good use out of it.
To me the future looks Linux, Linux and more Linux.