Oi! Whats wrong with me?
Posted by Tyler Brown
So first I end up missing Monday's Post, and then I'm about an hour late on getting Wednesday's post up? What in the world is wrong with me? Sorry about that. I've been a bit forgetful this week for some odd reason.
I'm gonna be honest, because I've been kinda put in a spot, I don't have anything to really blog about today. I'm actually writing this right before I head off to bed because I really need to fix my sleep schedule so I'm not sleeping the entire day away.
However, I am pretty excited for tomorrow. Tomorrow will be the release of OpenSUSE 11.3 which I have been waiting to try for a little while now. I've been really trying to find a Linux distribution that has a really good implementation of KDE while still providing a few other great features as well. I'll be sure to talk about my experiences w/ OpenSUSE on Friday.
Anyway, thanks for putting up w/ the lack of posts this week or late posts this week, check back Friday for another post, and please subscribe.
Also, just before I forget:
Is there any reason you give other Linux distributions a try, is it because you like to distro-hop or are you trying to look for something Unique or Specific? Answer in the comment.
- Tyler J. Brown (Condoulo).
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Blogging Schedule – NEED FEEDBACK
Posted by Tyler Brown
Ok, this blog post is going to be more of an update than anything else. I was thinking over the weekend, and I thought that I should try to bring more structure to the schedule in which I released blog posts. Maybe not do one every day, but instead every other weekday? I was thinking one for Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The reasoning would be it would give me a day to write and edit it, and I would make sure its good to release the next day, and then an entire weekend before Monday to work on it.
Another thing I was thinking of is maybe have a different type of content for each of one of those days? Maybe a software review on one of those days, a News roundup on another day (probably Friday), and even a Linux distro review on another?
However, what I'm also looking for is Feedback. What I'm wanting to know is what do you want to see on this blog? Software reviews, Linux Distro reviews, more news, more personal stuff (although I think personal blogs won't follow any schedule, and will be posted just whenever), more videos, etc? Please leave comments on this post to let me know. Because lately I've definitely felt more motivated to start getting stuff setup on this blog and creating more content.
What I would also like some feedback on, is possibly getting a new theme for this blog, as well as what would you like to see on this site in general?
So again, thanks for reading, subscribe for more upcoming content, a new post coming this Wednesday, and PLEASE leave some feedback in the comment sections. I'd like to see what you all think.
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New Random Blog Post, Updates, etc.
Posted by Tyler Brown
Ok, I apologize for not keeping up with my promise last month. Summer started to drag on, I had a cold for the first week and a half of June, etc. etc. So anyway, its July 1st, new month, and I figured, time for a new blog post.
So in the past month I've probably used Ubuntu 10.04 95% of the time, and Windows Vista about 5% of the time. So, I'm definitely using Linux hell of a lot more than I have in the past, which is definitely a good thing! Yes, I have gotten used to the buttons being on the left side of the titlebar, and even Ubuntu's new Ambiance Theme (although I changed it to something else eventually anyway).
So, around a week and a half ago I decided to order a new 500GB HDD. I wasn't running dangerously low on space, but I figured I might as well order one just to have the extra space, have one nice really large drive, and for performance too (the 32MB of cache is pretty nice). The drive I ordered was a 500GB Western Digital Caviar Black. Absolutely amazing drive. Boots up into Ubuntu 10.04 much quicker than the 40GB I previous had Ubuntu on. And just to bring it, my previous drive configuration was 1x120GB for Vista, 1x80GB for Storage, and 1x40GB for Ubuntu 10.04. Now its 1x500GB for Ubuntu, 1x120GB for Vista, and 1x80GB for Storage. I'll include the unboxing video of the HDD below. I gave the 40GB SATA to my younger brother to use as an extra drive, which brings up the next topic.
My younger brother having had suffered 2 months on a A8N-SLI board (after trading motherboards with my other younger brother) which wouldn't work with his video card or Processor correctly (it detected his Socket 939 Athlon x2 as a Single Core), he finally got a new motherboard/CPU with 3GB of DDR2 RAM included. He's now finally able to use his 512MB 8600GT again, and his new CPU is an Athlon II x3 CPU at 2.7GHhz. Of course, because that boards only IDE channel would have been taken up by his Optical Drive, we had to order ANOTHER 500GB Western Digital Caviar Black drive. The pure fact that it was on sale AGAIN when we realized he needed another drive was some pretty good luck, otherwise we would have had to go with a 320GB or 250GB drive instead. But basically we set up a dual-boot on his system w/ XP and 7, plus a partition to store games. My youngest brother also got an upgrade out of this, including an upgrade to 2.5GB of RAM, Socket 939 Athlon x2 2.4GHz, and an extra 80GB IDE HDD.
Another thing I would like to mention is I have an extra Pentium D + a Board laying around I am actually considering doing something with. I just need to get a case, HDD, an optical drive for it (and maybe just a little bit more RAM). What I was thinking is I could possibly set that up to do videos on AND I will also probably use that as a machine to setup and do distribution testing and reviews on.
Anyway, I did mention I was getting used to Ubuntu's Ambiance Theme, well, thats when I decided to install the Elementary Theme Package, including The Elementary Modification of GNOME's File Manager Nautilus. I absolutely love this theme, and its actually going to be the Default theme of a Ubuntu-based distribution coming out called "Elementary OS". I think I might do a review on that in the future. That, along w/ Installing the AWN Dock, and using GNOME-DO, I can definitely say this UI is heck of a lot better than Window's UI.
So to continue on with my aimless rambling (is it really aimless?), while I kind of didn't go through with my blog every day in June, I definitely plan on doing more blog posts this month. I have been messing around with some pretty interesting software packages lately, mostly ones I found via Ubuntu's Software manager, that I would probably like to talk about, including an application I'm using to type this blog post in right now. So thats what I might focus my blog posts on in the next week, and I might even include videos. So, I would recommend keeping your eyes glued to this blog.
Anyway, thanks for reading this rambling blog post just updating a few things. Please subscribe to my Blog so you can keep on reading the next series of posts reviewing certain pieces of software, and I would definitely love some Constructive Feedback/Criticism in the comments section.
~ Tyler J. Brown
Back on Vista…. and using Opera
Posted by Tyler Brown
Yes, you heard it correctly. I am back on Vista. So what happened? I was on Windows 7 Ultimate for nearly a year (From the RC to the RTM).
Well, as some of you may have known, I had gotten an MSDN account through another staff member when I was a staff member at McInTEC. After I had decided to leave in January, I lost my MSDN account too. No big deal, right? I saved my keys. That was all fine and dandy until just within the past week or so all my Windows 7 Ultimate Keys that I had, about 3, ended up getting blacklisted from Microsoft for no reason.
So why didn't I fight Microsoft to get my keys back? Well, for a couple reasons. First off, I got the MSDN account for free through that other staff member at McInTEC. No point in trying to get back keys that I didn't even pay for in the first part, even if they were legit in the first place. Secondly, I will be going to college this fall, and as a college student, I will either be able to get a huge discount on Windows 7, or the school that I plan on going to will offer a copy of Windows 7 Pro to their students via an MSDNAA account.
So anyway, now that I'm back on Vista, this time Vista Ultimate x64 (Thanks to a couple good friends! 
), I might as well talk about my experience a tiny bit. I will say one thing for sure, it isn't until you go back to using Windows Vista, that you start really noticing the small things in Windows 7 that you got really used to. For example, on Windows 7, I had gotten quite used to the superbar, especially how it grouped applications together, and how I could close a window just by clicking the scroll-wheel on my mouse. I had also gotten used to using Aero Peek to check my widgets, primarily using the keyboard shortcut Win+Space. Yeah, I know on Windows Vista it also brings the gadgets to the front, but it doesn't put them back in the background either. Those were just probably a few of the things I've kinda gotten used to again.
So, as usual when it comes to an OS reload, it'll probably take a couple weeks to a month to remember to reinstall everything that I use every now and then, but from the looks of it, everything is running alright, I am having no issues, etc. Enough about Vista though, I'm going to talk about Opera.
So about early March is when Opera 10.50 came out to the public as a final release, in time for the EU Mandated Browser Ballot Box Microsoft had to include in Windows 7 to be released, which is the reasoning they used as to why the Linux and OS X releases hadn't been released. Then about later that month Opera 10.51 was release, which fixed a few bugs, improved performance, etc. Anyway, when I did the reinstall of Vista, I decided that instead of installing Chrome first, I would instead give Opera a chance and use that as my primary browser for a little while. So far its been a pretty interesting experiences, a few bumps here and there, but definitely I can say its a great browser.
To start off with, Opera 10.5x sports an amazing new UI, including support for Aero integration with Vista/7, as well as including integration into XP Luna, Zune, and Media Center themes, which is going above and beyond what Google has done for UI integration w/ Chrome on XP and what Mozilla has done with Firefox. Opera 10.5x also includes a new tab design, and has moved the entire menu bar over to one button on the top left corner, that sports a red background and a white Opera logo (you still do have the option to move the Menu bar back to normal).
Opera 10.51 UI for Vista/7
Enough about the UI, what about the speed, and its performance. Opera 10.5x is the first version of Opera that I've used that has had an amazingly fast JS rendering engine. Its about as fast as both Safari and Google Chrome's Javascript engines. Its loading of pages is also very very quick. Loading pages is also very very quick. In terms of resource usage, when using flash, it can be a bit of hog, but thats not very surprising. Flash by itself on browsers that take advantage of out of process flash is also very much a hog. Overall, performance for me has been very good, speed has been great, and most of my issues may have come from the websites themselves.
So despite the many great features I've found with Opera, it does have its own issues. Mostly with how certain websites act in it, including a few pages on Facebook, Google Reader, and including Geeks.pirillo.com. I'm not going to go more in-depth of other features, issues, etc. Because, its nearly 2 months after the original release of Opera 10.50, so theres probably already enough blog posts on it. Overall, I'm just going to say thats its been a great browser so far in the past few days, and I'm going to continue using it for a little while. Who knows, it may stay my default browser, or I might have to go back to Chrome. I'll update that for you all in a week.
Anyway, thanks for reading the first blog post in a couple months! Please subscribe to my blog by clicking the orange RSS icon if you want to see more content. I also appreciate comments, and CONSTRUCTIVE criticism on my writing.
- Tyler Brown
First month of new year
Posted by Tyler Brown
I guess there is no rhyme or reason to this post either, I just feel like making a new blog post.
I was just randomly thinking, the first month of the year is already over, of the new decade too. Its real hard to believe how much has changed just in the past month in terms of what I do online, and how I do things. I'm also thinking of the changes that will be occurring in the next 11 months as well.
So, lets just start off with the changes that have occurred in just the past month, which has gone by way too fast. To start off, the Downstairs furnace we had failed. Since then we've been trying heat at least the main areas of the main floor with 3 to 4 different space heaters, which has been a real pain due to the Harsh winter we've been experiencing in the past month (with a nice little break of warm weather in between).
I also decided to take a leave from McInTEC at the beginning of the month, and pretty much had decided to leave at this point. I guess this is my official announcement on my blog of me leaving McInTEC? I won't go into the detail for the reasons why, but, I just felt things weren't really the same anymore. Just didn't feel like a "community" as it used to.
In the past month I've also been trying to bring a few people together to come up with ideas for a community project. In the end we decided to work with Dallin on creating a part of GeekLoop focused around the community. Theres more information here. If you want to do more to help, stop by #GeekLoop on GeekShed.
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I have finally gotten a dual monitor setup! I absolutely love the fact that I can do so much more with a dual monitor setup, and I don't think I'll go back to a single-monitor setup, at all.
So with the first month of 2010 nearly gone, what changes lie ahead? Well, I plan on getting my A+ certification in the next couple weeks! On February 5th Portfolios are due, and February 12th marks the end of the Second trimester of my Senior Year. On the 26th of March I will be turning 18, which will definitely open up a lot of opportunities for me. And of course, in May in graduation and I hope to get a job in late May or early June.
I guess when I try to do posts I don't do many personal blog posts, but I really think I should plan on doing more personal posts in the future. I guess its just something I really ought to do. However, I also should start doing more technology posts and opinion posts as well, just to keep things interesting. Got any suggestions on what I should possibly do a video or blog post on? Leave a comment below and I'll see what I can do. Anyway, thanks for reading.
- Tyler
P.S. Just a little extra edit before I publish this, I would like to encourage you all to check out Constant-Hosting if you need a host for your web site, blog, or whatever!