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).

The post is brought to you by lekhonee v0.7

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

So far I've made it two weeks without booting into Vista. Pretty good accomplishment, of course. hehe. Of course, I haven't watched Hulu in a couple weeks, since Flash for Linux is still crappy, and would probably perform like crap when full-screen. So when I get a PC to use as a Media-center, I'll probably use Windows on it for that purpose. Otherwise, I have no other reason to boot into Windows. I'm not much of a gamer, I found a Ventrilo client for Linux that actually works called Mangler (Which I'll blog about in a later post), I'm having no performance issues, etc.

I have yet to setup Zen Walk on the Pentium 4 HT, just been kind of busy/crazy lately. Hopefully I'll be able to do that later this week and blog about it.

So in terms of whats going on in my life? Tomorrow, June 1st, I will have Graduation practice. I can't believe I've made it to this point, and I can't wait for graduation which will be this Wednesday on June 2nd. Last Tuesday I took the Second A+ Exam and passed it, meaning I am now A+ Certified (Although it took CompTIA Nearly a week to process it and send me a confirmation e-mail). I'm still waiting for the Strata certificate for the Strata Exam I took and passed over a month ago, which they're sending via Snail-mail. hehe.

Starting after graduation I'll definitely start looking for a job. I mean, I need a way to pay for  all the computer upgrades I want to do. That, and I need to find a way to pay for school this fall, as well as many other things. I already have a couple places in mind that I will be applying to.

Anyway, be sure to look for a new blog post tomorrow. Don't forget to subscribe to this blog, and make constructive comments on this and my other posts! And don't be afraid to provide constructive criticism too. Anyway, thanks for reading!

- Tyler J. Brown (Condoulo)

So yeah, I've been looking into doing a few screencasts again. Its been a couple years since I've done a few on a regular basis. The biggest problem is the fact that I can't find a good screen recorder on Linux that works all that great.

I also went dual monitors as of late! I guess I'll post a picture later. Its not all that great of a second monitor, its a 19" Standard at 1280x1024, and towards the top the color is messed up, but it doesn't bother me at all. I tworks great for its purpose, and thats to be used as a second monitor for putting IRC, Digsby, and Skype stuff on. as well as check stuff online while I'm watching a movie or something fullscreen on my main monitor.

Well, I guess thats all I'm going to talk about in this blog post. My next few blog posts will probably a bit more "Formal" with a topic and everything.

- Tyler

Thats just one of many examples of Karma though, which is very recent. I myself have seen my parents do a good deed via Craigslist or Freecycle, and later on either something good happens or we avoid something bad.

Anyway, I think I'm gonna close it off. A short blog post, yes, but something I've had on my mind. It all goes back to the golden rule, really, treat others as you would like to be treated, especially if you were in their predicament, because life can take unexpected turns, and irony can be pretty damn cruel.

Anyway, thanks for reading,

~ Tyler J. Brown (Condoulo)

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)

• condoulo.com would contain the Main Condoulo Website/Drupal Install, live page, and most everything else
• My personal blog will be moved from blog.condoulo.info to www.condoulo.info

I will probably try to do more blog posts, as I feel I have been lacking, and haven't done a blog post in quite some time. Probably do a bit more tech blogs, as I haven't really done any since the post on McInTEC, and even thats more about the McInTEC community in general vs. technology in general.

So please subscribe to this blog Via Google Reader, Firefox's live Bookmarks, or whatever you use to subscribe to my blog, and please check to for update. Thanks for reading.

~ Tyler