20081014
The Smell of Sulphur before Cambridge
In these irksome economic times where money is tight, the job market is arid, and you pray to God that what you still have holds up until you find a job that pays well and has modest benefits.But until the technology companies figure out that climate in Missouri is less likely to spontaneously combust into a fiery inferno than California, and that gas is cheaper, and housing is more affordable, I can only dream about working for a technology company that offers an appreticeship position.
In the meantime, I upgraded from Fedora 8 (Werewolf) to Fedora 9 (Sulphur).
I realized that when I had to reinstall operating system on my parents' computer recently, and that Firefox 3 was available, that I had enough with waiting for Fedora to upgrade to Firefox 3.
Firefox 3 is a must have. Saved sessions are a godsend since the Adobe Flash Plugin generally crashes. But like Firefox 2, Firefox 3 loves to consume memory, especially when Flash is being used. The Adobe guys still like to play the part of Debbie Downer. Flash 10 still doesn't work for X86_64. Flash 9 still doesn't work well with Compiz-Fusion. And Compiz-Fusion (not an Adobe product) would be so much cooler if I had more memory.
Perhaps I can't comprehend Compiz-Fusion how good it can be because I am to anxeous to appreciate it due to my hardware constraints. If I could afford fancier components (more memory, new DVD burner, better graphics card, a case with better air flow, a better partitioned harddrive, a touchscreen monitor,...) then maybe I could appreciate it. But running Compiz is like trying to run Vista on an old 286 notebook computer. But I'm using a 64-bit dual core system. So for right now, Compiz is turned off, which sucks considering Google Gadgets is available and looks beautiful when Compiz is running.
Speaking of Google, some Google goodies are available in Fedora 9. GMail has a link as does Google Calendar and Google Docs & Spreadsheets, though Abiword and Gnumeric are great Open Source alternatives to Microsoft Word and Excel. I think there might be a way to fool GNOME into making GMail the default mail application and Firefox open GMail when an email address is clicked.
Google Gears is still not ported to X86_64, but I have a feeling that someone at Fedora or Google may be working on that issue. And rumors are going around about a possible 64-bit version of Flash 10. For right now, I'm sticking with Flash 9. A stop by here and here are still manditory for X86_64 Linux users.
Fedora 10 (Cambridge) promises tabbed windows in Nautius at the end of the year (which seems likely) and KDE 4 (hopefully). Personally, since most of the programs that use GTK for their UI rather than Qt, GNOME seems to be taking an outstanding improvement over KDE.
I personally believe widgets are kind of silly. What is the point of running a program that is underneath several other programs that you actually are using. Widgets are nothing more than eye candy really. And as the dentist would say, too much candy is bad for you. Call me old school, but I prefer icons and taskbars over widgets and dashboards. Again, my conservative views on computer hardware and performance seem to be a killjoy in terms of all this new technology.
Labels: firefox, google, linux, software
posted by Bushido Hacks 10/14/2008 05:48:00 AM (0) comments top
20081001
Google Phone won't be coming to St. Louis? Curse the Cubs!
Jelous of Chicago's access to technology that St. Louis does not get, I want someone in St. Louis to go up to Wrigley Stadium, buy tickets for Section 4, Row 8, Seat 113 and dress up as an angry goat farmer. Because if I don't get a G1, the Cubs can't be freed of The Curse.I walked into the T-Mobile store today, understanding that yeah I wasn't going to be getting the phone anytime soon, hoping to find some printed information only to be told by the friendly salesman "There won't be a G-Phone in the St. Louis area." (Booooooooo!!!!)
The Apple iPhone is in the St. Louis area, but I dislike the device and hate AT&T so much. (Bad service. High prices. "No jobs" in that big building downtown. (Yeah, right.))
As if my technological luck wasn't bad enough, a flaw in the iRiver H100 series (in my case H120) in the electrical system has put my MP3 player in limbo. The battery and Hardrive are OK, but the firmware is boned.
e ho
I miss money. That is why, I will soon be adding ads to this blog in the near future. While hosting this site has been affordable, the job market in the St. Louis area has been cruel and unimaginative. Sales jobs are no place for a computer nerd. So until the job sites stop sending me the same three lame-ass sales jobs while the good jobs are outside of the area (or country for that matter), this site will be taking on some ads.
Labels: brick, business, google, phone, stlouis
posted by Bushido Hacks 10/01/2008 10:05:00 PM (0) comments top
20080923
Hello, AT&T? T-Mobile Called. They want me back! - Click!
Four years ago, I made some pretty stupid mistakes. I voted for Bush (something I am not proud of anymore), and I switched from T-Mobile to Cingular, which then became AT&T. At that time, no one would have predicted that a camper who I was supervising would be stung by a bee in the middle of a camp out and thus require the need for a cellular telephone in a place where you normally turn those things off.In this time for change and economic uncertanty, a glimmer of hope emerges. Last year I sought to break free of the bondage that AT&T sold and failed, but this year, despite the fact that their unclear wording looped me into another two year contract that I did not want with a phone that I also didn't want (*cough*Palm Treo*cough*) because the guy at the phone store didn't want to sell me a Blackberry, I've decided to break free from AT&T as soon as I have the proper monitary means to tell them to "piss off!"
The T-Mobile G1 (an HTC phone with Google Android) hits the shelf next month. That's right, iPhone losers. You guys can can use your little "fashion accessory" and stick where the sun don't shine! Android is bringing some serious applications for people who use their phones for serious puposes. An Internet company making an Internet phone powered by a software platform developed by people on the Internet.
My only hope for the G1 is an Secure Shell (SSH) application and a reliable battery. (Protip: Check Ebay for batteries with a longer battery life for your device!)
It's time to get free!
Labels: android, blackberry, freedom, google, palm, phone
posted by Bushido Hacks 9/23/2008 08:44:00 PM (1) comments top
20080728
Nothing Cool about Cuil - Click!
The Press has been bragging about Cuil (pronounced "cool"), a search engine created by a few people from Google hoping to get rich like their former employer.Cuil claims to have a database three times larger than Google, but the search still has alot of bugs.
Where Google has an Image search, Cuil does not. Cuil links images with artcles, images that do not match with the article. For example, a search for Bushido Hacks does not fetch BushidoHacks.com has the first result like it does with Google. Cuil claims that it is because it looks for pages that are relevant not popular. BushidoHacks.com seems pretty relevant. Searching on Ask.com would confirm Google is right.
Cuil claims to not track users like Google does, as if to state that Google is an Orwellian juggernaut (bitch!). While Google has grown from a sucky search engine to an outstanding search engine with services better than Yahoo! (I'm still pissed at them because they deleting my Geocities pages), Cuil seem to pull up all the instance of my name in the worst places. For instance, they pulled up the old avatar that I used on Weebl's website before they banned me. (Weebl's website has a very, very low tolerance for shenanigans. I think it was because I sent them the Goaste image on April Fools Day. At least I didn't Rickroll them.) Then their are the instance where my name shows up in user profiles. Bad Cuil!
Being a fan of various comics, manga, and video games, Cuil failed to find anything relevant. For example, one of my favorite Metal Gear Solid parodies is Metal Gear Yotsuba by Skaijo. Google found Skaijo's DeviantArt page. Ask found her NewGrounds page. Cuil found the internet community 4chan (NSFW!). My dog could search better than Cuil, and she can't even stay in the back yard without a leash.
But Cuil does have a couple of good features. A newspaper-like layout. Related Search Widgets. But even with all that, Cuil will more than likely go bust if the tech industry runs into a bubble situation.
If Cuil wants to work, it needs to realize that searches were not based on popularity in the first place and that its goal of relavance is way off the mark.
Labels: google, imho, internet, tubes, websites
posted by Bushido Hacks 7/28/2008 11:15:00 PM (0) comments top
20080202
Yahoo! will NEVER merge with Microsoft, so quit asking them, Microsoft!
In what has to be the umpteenth time that Microsoft has asked Yahoo! to merge with them, rest easy Yahoo! users as this will NEVER happen.Since Yahoo! started in 1995, Microsoft has made several bids to buy Yahoo! all of them were denied. Even as Google dwarfed Yahoo! and Microsoft, Yahoo! still denied to merge with Microsoft.
As Microsoft still fightst to keep its foot in the door, it's goal is to "embrace, extend, and extinguish". Something Yahoo! knows about Microsoft quite well, considering most of MSN has been a less-than-user-friendly parody of Yahoo!
As much as I am still p.o.'d at Yahoo! for destroying my first webpages that were on Geocities, I still support there decision to say no to Microsoft, which is currently struggling since Google is the new leader of the pack in the tech sector.
Labels: business, google, microsoft, yahoo
posted by Bushido Hacks 2/02/2008 12:21:00 AM (0) comments top
20071113
Android Runs on Java and Under the Couch - Click!
I don't know why people still use Java. Even on a dual core system with pleanty of memory, Java love to suck up system resources until it putters at a Commodores pace. In addition, Java is an energy hog on portable devices, including Moto's RAZR.Here's something to think about: Why aren't portable apps being written in Python or C? I read about portable applications for mobile devices using open source software all the time. Why don't we see these things in other technology magazines other than Linux Journal or Linux User?
C is efficent. The codes can be ported to iPhone and Palm OS. But mobile application projects for C and Python came to a halt earilier this decade, primarily because Java became the only game in town.
Thanks to Apple, interest in programming mobile devices is on the rise again. Hacking the iPhone is the primary goal, but hopefully Palm OS and Blackberry users will join in. (This was one of Android's goals in the first place.)
Android runs under the couch like a Roomba Robot. Atleast I still have an SSH program.
UPDATE:
After some review of Android, I have decided to reconsider my stance on Java programming. Perhaps I will find what it is that Java does that make is so energy-innefficent.
My appologies for being dismissive.
Labels: brew, google, java, palm, phone
posted by Bushido Hacks 11/13/2007 02:01:00 PM (0) comments top
20070618
FUDBusters!
Today I want to start a new segment call FUDBusters. I decided if there was anything worth using the tags again for my blog it would be to dispell alot of these false complaints floating around the Internet which are nothing more than FUD.First item of business is this nVidia Drivers for Linux issue. The only thing people should be complaning about with the drivers is the nVidia logo screen that shows up on startup. It should be noted that you should know what kind of Graphics card your system uses before installing this software. Just to be on the safe side, if you have an nVidia graphics card on your system, the only nVidia Drivers you should install are the basic drivers. FreshRPMs has this problem covered. The have nVidia drivers available for Fedora Core 7. Despite the caveat emptor, it should be safe to install the drivers, just be sure to install FreshRPMs YUM configuration files and use the "Add/Remove Software" feature. You are probably going to want to use GNOME for the desktop interface.
Speaking of GNOME, I've decided to stick with it. KDE isn't as great as I remembered. Probably because KDE 4 hasn't come out yet. I'd like to give Beryl a try, but so far all I get is this white screen and nothing to do buy press CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE. (This will end your session incase of emergency.) There was som instablity with KDE in terms of multimedia. I've been working on getting the HDTV card up and running. Hopefully, it picks up radio since my inital intention was to install a radio card to listen to some local radio stations. Thats another item on the todo list.
Linux 64-bit is great. AMD2 users who are complaning about why they can't install Fedora 7 probably haven't read some of the ariticles I wrote last month.
Java: Still haven't found how to get it running. Quite honestly: WHO NEEDS IT?! Flash is the New Java. Java loves to suck up memory. That's probably why I prefer programming in C++, PHP, Python, etc. over Java. The only thing for SUN Microsystems left to do is turn into a red giant, supernova, shrink into a white dwarf, and die. I just wish Yahoo! would make Literali run on Flash so I don't have to use Java. It turns out I'm not the only person to have problems with Java. The National Weather Service office here in St. Louis was reporting that they had problems with their animations lately because of a Java upgrade. Fortunately, the have KML files to dowload, which brings me ot my final point this afternoon.
YES! Google Earth DOES work on Fedora 7 Linux 64-bit with nVidia drivers. Again with the drivers. The only drivers computer geeks should be worried about are the nirods with a cell phone in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other on highway who don't use their blinkers.
chmod 744 GoogleEarthLinux.bin; ./GoogleEarthLinux.bin
Now, no more FUD!
Labels: fud, google, hardware, linux
posted by Bushido Hacks 6/18/2007 04:49:00 PM (0) comments top
20070522
Major Blog Changes Coming
I don't know what is harder. Having to find the courage to go to a long overdue dental appointment, or trying to update this blog's layout.I'm making some changes to some old blog entries so that I can create a uniform style, add keywords, check spelling and grammar, so that I can try to attempt making changes to this blog.
Blogger's syntax makes me a little nervous. There was a reason why I chose to format my pages in PHP, but I ended out using JavaScript to create the advanced features which look like crap.
So, this week, BushidoHacks.com is under renovation. It won't be closed like the forums, but it will be making changes to attract more users to this site.
I really want to get ASUKA set up. I need to write up a Software Requirement Specification Document (SRSD).
Meanwhile, I need to see if I should still use Blogger or if I should switch to Wordpress. I'm glad that Blogger is finally using keyword labels like Wordpress, but if Wordpress is more efficient, then I may have to do something I really don't want to do: Migrate from Blogger to Wordpress.
But Blogger still has some great features. Moblogging (mobile blogging) using a cell phone. Automatically saving drafts. The power of Google's community of computer scientists and computer programmers. The network of users who write back.
I won't migrate from Blogger. But if the keywords post blog entries in several pages instead of posting once and using a database to call similar articles, then Wordpress may be the way to go.
But I should change this blog's layout before considering changing this blog's software.
Labels: asuka, blog, google, software, SRSD, websites
posted by Bushido Hacks 5/22/2007 11:25:00 AM (0) comments top
20061129
Weather Bonk a Donka Donk - Click!
Weather Bonk is the Google of weather information, not just because it uses Google Maps in combination with radar data from the National Weather Service, but because it allows you to decide where you want to get your weather from, either from the NWS, Weather.com, and a few other commerical weather sites.This mashup is a great example of when things with identical goals work together. With this major winter stom that is coming that is going to turn the sunny 70 degree day we had today into a frigid 27 degree night with rain, storms, lightening, thunder, hail, freezing rain, sleet, ice, snow, and just about everything execpt Biblical plagues.
Check it out.
Labels: google, maps, weather, websites
posted by Bushido Hacks 11/29/2006 07:00:00 PM (0) comments top
