Updates and Streaming this Friday
So because I haven't posted in a while, I do have a couple things I would like to mention, and just throw out a couple updates.
For one, I'm still on Ubuntu. =) I deleted my Windows partition about a month ago, even though I'm contemplating putting it back on the 80GB to play some games on, of course.
So, what can you probably expect in the near future? In about a couple weeks I will be giving my thoughts on Ubuntu 10.10 when thats released, also to note I will be going 64-bit again! =) About half a month ago when IE9 beta was released Adobe decided to come out with Adobe Flash Player Square, which has support for 64-bit on All three platforms, OS X, Windows, AAAAAAND Linux. 
I am definitely excited to go back to 64-bit once Ubuntu 10.10 is released.
And of course, as the title of this blog post mentions, I WILL be streaming this Friday. After a little bit of thinking, for about a few weeks I'm gonna give streaming every Friday night and doing a show a trial and see how that goes. If it goes well, and I get a good amount of Interest, I WILL continue doing it every Friday night, if not, then oh well, I might still do it. I will make a note of what time I plan on doing that, probably doing the evening.
A few updates on the IRC channel.. CondyBot is current down for the moment. Until I can get another machine to put CondyBot (that uses very little energy and is quiet), I will have somebody else running an IRC bot. Thanks to Dan/Grimreaper on that one.
Another thing that I have setup recently is a Teamspeak server that I set up for personal use, a few friends, and it also serves as the Backup Server for the This Week In Linux Teamspeak server.
And as a final note, as you may have noticed there are a few posts on this blog that were not written by me, that is because I have decided to allow FlamingLinux, someone I have met from the TWIL Community, to do blog posts on Linux related topics every now and then. 
Anyway, thanks for reading, please check later for a specific time on when I will be doing the stream this Friday, subscribe (As I normally say) to get updates on future blog posts/content, also you can follow my on Twitter which is @condoulo, and subscribe to the youtube channel Condoulo (Which I will be putting the shows up on). Until Next Time,
- Tyler J. Brown (Condoulo)
Late Post – IRC Bot
Ok, I know, this post is coming a day late, I've been a bit forgetful on some of this stuff lately.
Anyway, I've been messing w/ the IRC bot in my IRC channel, named CondyBot. To start out with I only had CondyBot as a Topic/RSS bot, but I decided to add some functions to it Today!
!trout *nickhere* = has CondyBot slap somebody w/ a Trout
!WinME *nickhere* = has CondyBot slap somebody w/ a Copy of Windows ME
!trade *nickhere* = has that person trade their computer w/ some random nick.
^ for those three if you don't put in a nickname it will slap you w/ a Trout, copy of Windows ME, or force you to trade your computer w/ somebody.
Some other more useful ones I've added are:
!latestpost = will post my latest blog post
!google *searchtermhere* = searches Google, used a google script I found somewhere.
!weather *zipcodhere* = displays the current weather information for your location.
!forecast *zipcodehere* = displays a 5 day forcast for your location
(Edit: The Weather and Forecast triggers are all part of one script I got from here.)
!live = links to my live page
!blog = links to the home page of this web-site
!kbotspam *nickhere* = allows those that are hop and above to kick somebody for abusing the bot (I'll add a !kbbotspam trigger later, maybe).
I believe thats it. If you want to chat about just whatever w/ the people in my IRC channel, or want to have fun w/ the bot (w/o abusing the commands too much, otherwise you'll be kicked), stop by #condoulo on irc.geekshed.net. You can either use web clients like the Geekshed client or Mibbit, or you can use desktop IRC clients such as mIRC, IceChat, xChat, KVIRC, Konversation, Colloquy, Linkinus, etc.
The question for Today's blog post happens to be: Wheres your IRC channel located, do you have a bot in it, and how many people on average do you get? Please answer in the posts comments!
Anyway, thanks for reading, subscribe to the Blogs RSS feed using your favorite RSS reader/client, and be sure to check back Monday for a new post!
- Tyler J. Brown (Condoulo)
The post is brought to you by lekhonee v0.7
Back on Vista…. and using Opera
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
My browser situation in Linux
I don't know why, but it seems with every release of Firefox, on Linux it starts to feel more and more sluggish. Not just loading pages (Thats actually improved in a way,) but in overall performance, CPU usage, Javascript performance, and overall sluggishness. It really feels as if Mozilla is catering more to those that are switching over from IE on Windows, versus those that have been using Firefox on Linux for many years, and its just been starting to feel more and more like a bad port (not entirely, but it feels like its going into that direction,)
Though, I guess one thing I do have to realize while in the middle of this rant, is the architecture of my CPU is kind of aging, bit time. I have a Pentium D (also note that I have 2GB of RAM, an ATI Radeon HD2600XT 512MB Video card, and an 160GB SATA HDD,) which is basically two P4 cores on one chip, which was fine at some point, but most developers these days, and I'm assuming the same goes for Mozilla, are developing more so for the Core 2, Athlon X2, and Phenom architectures versus the old P4 architecture, despite a good amount of people still being on that architecture (Whether it be the actual P4, Pentium Ds, or a Celeron.)
Anyway, before I go onto that tangent, I will get back onto browsers. Firefox has just not felt like the fast Ferrari it used to be on Linux, or on my system in general. On Windows Vista/7 I've already switched to Google Chrome, Webkit has got to be the fastest rendering engine I have ever used, and Chrome's V8 Javascript engine is also amazing. The way it manages its processes also allows it to have amazing performance on my system.
So what does that have to do with Linux? Well, on Linux, Chrome is not officially out yet, and the Chromium Builds have just finally started to feel better and more stable, but they're not good/stable enough to be put into daily use, although, the latest Chromium Build on Linux has possibly got to be the fastest browser I have ever seen in terms of loading pages, and, it definitely doesn't feel the sluggishness I feel on Firefox.
So, if Chrome isn't ready, and Firefox is starting to feel very sluggish on Linux on my system, where do I turn? Epiphany doesn't exactly offer what I want, Konqueror doesn't have the same feel in GNOME that it does in KDE, and many of the other browsers designed specifically for Linux are just too basic for me/don't function the way I want it to.
I think just within the past few days I have grown to really love the Opera web browser on Linux. Its fast, its stable, the Opera 10 beta has a new beautiful theme, and new functionality I have grown to love. Opera just doesn't feel the same sluggishness that I have felt in Firefox recently either. Another thing I love is Opera sync - so if I so happen to find a piece of software I want to try out of look at on Windows (natively, mind you,) but don't feel like rebooting, I just bookmark it in Opera, and then reboot when I feel like it.
A few of the other features I like? Tab locking, prevents you from accidentally closing a tab you absolutely want open (like one you are typing an extensive Google Docs, or e-mail document on,) the tab bar now has built in previews when you resize it (screenshot below,) an amazing download manager, notes, Speed Dial (which in Opera 10 beta is customizable,) and probably many other hidden features I have yet to find.
Now time for the screenshots!
Opera's speed dial is now customizable
Opera's new tab bar feature
Overall, in terms of a browsing experience, and features, I give Opera a 10/10. I feel this browser definitely isn't getting the attention it deserves, or is over-looked way too much. Maybe because its not entirely open source? Or maybe the fact its been around forever (but you think that'd be a sign of strength.) Whatever it may be, it doesn't change the fact the Opera is a great browser, and for the time being, it will become my default browser on Linux, well, unless the final version of Chrome for Linux just completely wows me (and knowing how they did a good job on that on Windows, it is very likely.)
Anyway, thanks for reading my blog, and my blog post. Please subscribe, and check back for more. I promise, this time, I will be more dedicated to blogging. (to subscribe, just click on the orange RSS icon at the top of the page that says "Subscribe to RSS")
Also, if you need great, reliable web hosting, or a VPS, please check out Constant-Hosting.
~ Tyler J. Brown (Condoulo)
Another Weekend Passes by
So, another weekend has come and gone for the most part. Seems like this has been an interesting weekend. I have finally gotten more work done on my website (http://www.condoulo.com), I have added a new gallery section to the site (http://www.condoulo.com/gallery), the software used is Gallery2, and I used a module for drupal to integrate it into the Drupal Install I have on the website. I think it was done very nicely. Though, there are still a few flaws here and there, the kinks will be worked out over time, so feel free to use it! Just please don't post anything questionable though.
Saturday Night was Thunder Over Louisville, its a shame that I didn't go in person, because the Camera Men for WHAS were starting to piss me off. At least for one part of the show they had a camera angle above the actual Fireworks, so those watching at home missed like 5 seconds of it.
I also gave Windows 7 Beta/RC another try Saturday, installing it from a flash drive, the installation was pretty quick. Though, here's my thought on it. Some things felt faster than on Vista, other things felt a bit slower than Vista. Of course, I haven't spent too much time truly optimizing it. Windows 7 has some performance enhancements, and some feature updates, but all in all, it feels more like a service pack than anything, and to spend $100 on an OEM copy upon release, at least if you are on Vista, isn't worth it. If you are on Windows XP still, I would say, go to Windows 7, because its a bit late in the game to get Vista and then be slammed in the face with a new version.
Anyway, if you liked what you have read, please subscribe. If you use a browser that supports RSS subscriptions (Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE7+), there should be an orange or blue (Safari) RSS icon somewhere on the browser, and click on that to subscribe!
Anyway, thanks for reading!
~ Tyler J. Brown (Condoulo)