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)
Oi! Whats wrong with me?
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
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.
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
Mangler – A Ventrilo Client for Linux
So, I guess this is the first blog post for the month.
So, anyway. One of the things that has always kept me from always using Linux, especially when I used to be really really active over at McInTEC, is Ventrilo. I've tried various things from Virtual Machines, using Ventrilo in Wine, to trying under-developed projects such as Spux. Well, in the past month I found this piece of software called Mangler, which is a Ventrilo client for Linux. Their motto is “You should never use our software... ever.” Basically meaning that Mangler is to be used if you have no other option, and that you should opt to use Open Source alternatives for VOIP servers such as Mumble.
The Interface is very easy to use – basic, and the options aren't too hard to get at all. My Microphone works perfectly in it, Audio works, I can set comments, change the volume of people in the application, and more. Thats the very thing that surprised me, it worked. In the past few years this is the first successful Ventrilo client for Linux that I have even used.
Mangler Ventrilo Client
So basically, if you need to use Ventrilo for Linux and have no alternative, I would recommend looking at Mangler. It is a very good application and the best part about it: It works.
So yes, within the last few minutes of the day I managed to get this blog post out. I could have went more in depth about it, but it was a crazy day. Family came into town, first time I've seen em' in a year. Graduation practice was today, and graduation will be tomorrow. So, I will definitely be producing more in-depth posts later on in the month once things get a little back to normal. Otherwise, thanks for reading. Subscribe to see the other 29 posts I will do this month, hopefully, and check back tomorrow for the next post!
- Tyler J. Brown (Condoulo)