by R.I. Pienaar | Feb 27, 2007 | Front Page
I’ve been giving Ubuntu another go on a Desktop. Last time I tried it my intention was to see if it really was a viable switching target from OS X and it turns out for that specific task It sux, this time I was more looking for a desktop fit for a Unix knowledgeable person so have had more tolerance for some stupid things like not being able to play popular content out the box.
Here is a random list of things that was worth noting to me:
- I got Beryl and XGL going on my little Acer 12″ laptop, it’s really nice but unfortunately I can’t get it going on my desktops because they have ATI cards. I will be buying some Intel based cards for these.
- Laptop support in general is really good, it hibernates and everything works. Getting the Acer buttons for things like enabling Wifi was a right pain, I had to tinker with some kernel modules etc.
- Wifi support has a long way to go, the UI for configuring keys, choosing networks and types is totally useless and I hope it’s something on their list to fix real soon
- GAIM has taken a turn for the worst, you should try Kopete for a good IM client
- Changing the behavior of something as simple as the Backspace key in Firefox can really spoil your day
- They push out a silly amount of updates and like with OS X they’re pretty big, I’m really glad I am not on a modem in the 3rd world using Ubuntu or OS X.
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Easyubuntu is pretty good, Ubuntu needs to take this and put together a paid for package, I’d pay for it.
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Crossover Office is really good, I’ve been running MS Office 2003 using it and been very happy with the results, MS Word is fast, stable and full featured, blows OpenOffice away, currently on the Demo but will buy soon.
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Wine isn’t too bad either, it runs Digiguide without a problem, this was one of the big things that kept me on Windows.
- I do sometimes boot into Windows, I do this via VMWare for simple stuff, I’m booting the the physical NTFS partition inside VMWare and its ok, but my AMD 2600 is pretty crap for this, soon I’ll buy a nice Core 2 DUO machine for this and it will solve my speed problems.
So it seems I’ll be moving off a Windows desktop now, I might still get a 2nd Mac instead of the Ubuntu machine that will be the perfect setup for me – 2 x iMac – but till then this will do well enough.
by R.I. Pienaar | Jan 18, 2007 | Front Page
I bought a Nintendo Wii, it was not easy I’ve spent hours trying to source one eventually the guys over at Stocknetwork delivered the goods, they notified me by email that the someone would have stock the next morning and managed to get it in the 10 minutes they had stock.
I bought a few games apart from the Wii Sport. I got Need for Speed Carbon, Zelda and Call of Duty 3.
The console is totally addictive and I wouldn’t have thought it but the Wii Sports package is the killer. Call of Duty totally disappoints due to the difficult controls, Need for Speed is fun I like driving with the nunchuck it’s the first driving game that I actually manage to play well since before I was stuck with keyboards and xbox controls, neither great for driving. The most time though is spent in Wii Sports so far.
The appeal of the Wii Sports is its simplicity, I tried as an experiment to get my girlfriend into playing something on the Xbox – we tried Gotham 1 and 2, Unreal Tournament and The Suffering, the controls were just no good but she immediately got the hang of the Wii controls and is totally into playing tennis. My 2nd set of controllers are on their way then we can play against each other which should proof fun but might ultimately convince me to get a bigger tv for the split screen.
While its simplistic it also has some depth, Tennis is the best of the lot and you can really control the ball well, put on some spin, control the power of your strokes etc, all this without the added hassle of maneuvering your men since the console takes care of running to the balls for you. I think these party games are going to be the genre that dominates, I’m already dying to get my hands on Wii Play.
Anyway, this console kicks arse, if you’ve got one my Wii number is 1405 1552 0430 8836. Drop me a line with your console number and be sure to enable Mingling! If you don’t want your number out in the open just say so when you leave a comment here and I won’t approve it.
by R.I. Pienaar | Dec 24, 2006 | Front Page
We are now back from holiday after driving 1065 miles (1713 kilo meter).
We decided to cut 2 days out of our plans for the trip due to the persistent fog. First few days we had great weather, when the fog first set in it was fine as well as we were at Fountains Abbey where it added great atmosphere to everything, then we visited Emma’s sister so no big deal. Last 2 days where primarily days for seeing the beauty of the lake and peak districts and we had zero visibility, so we decided to cut the Dean Forest days out out of the trip.
I used my trusty old Magellan GPS 315 to record the trip, one day I didn’t use it as we were mostly just driving around New Castle, also didn’t record short trips to restaurants and the like, therefore it’s total distance is a bit out, only 947 miles on the track.
Average Speed: 63 km/hour
Max Elevation: 450 meter / 1473 feet
The car behaved perfectly, no hitches or complaints at all and overall I had a great time on the holiday.
I made the track using my GPS track management application that I’ve blogged about before, I’ll turn it into a interactive google map with links to places, pictures etc and link it here later.
by R.I. Pienaar | Dec 15, 2006 | Front Page
Last night while packing for my holiday it struck me just how bad things are today with all the gadgets and stuff we carry around. I guess the list of things I packed says it all:
| USB Cable for WM5 phone and photovault |
Laptop + Charger |
| Lensbaby |
DSLR Cleaning kit |
| USB card reader |
GPS data cable |
| Backup mobile phone on a different network |
4 x AA batteries and charger |
| USB Speakers for watching divx |
6 x Ilford HP5+ films |
| Spot Meter |
2 x Ilford FP4+ films |
| Nikon FM3a |
Nikon FE |
| 12 to 220 volt adapter for car |
D70 + Battery + Charger |
| Road Atlas |
TomTom Navigator with latest speed cams loaded |
| WM5 Phone + Charger |
Tourist books, reading books |
| D80 + Grip + 4 x AA Adapters + 18-200VR |
Flash Light |
| 5 x Memory Cards |
Tri-Pod |
| Notebook + Pen |
Photovault |
That’s about it, all of this before even starting on clothing and other such things. Insane.
Anyway, so a bit about the holiday, we’re just doing a bit of a road trip to test out my new car, I only have 6 days leave this year after changing jobs and loosing 16 days worth in the process so this is all we really have time for ๐
The major stops are basically Cambridge (today), Bolsover for a castle there, York, New Castle, Lake District, Peak District and Royal forest of Dean, we’ll be back around christmas day.
by R.I. Pienaar | Aug 17, 2006 | Front Page
People are starting to realize a thing or two about Ubuntu and Linux on the desktop in general it seems. One of the big profile Switchers have gone back to OS X, Tim Bray details why he is going back to a Mac. He has some gripes with Ubuntu, frankly they are not huge gripes but apparently for him enough.
I think the bottom-line is he hates the Apple applications and never thought of trying Thunderbird and friends on a Mac, shocking, anyway so now he realized he can get those same apps on a Mac and not be data-locked into them he feels happier going back to the Mac
Well, I don’t know. Weirdly, now that I’ve realized that I can have a decent application suite that doesn’t lock up my data and runs on whatever OS/Hardware, my desire to get off the Mac has moderated.
He also touches on some of my general issues with Linux on the desktop, people seem to think they have to retain it as a free thing so they don’t bundle useful stuff and they don’t buy decent sets of fonts etc, I bet if Ubuntu releases a pay version that has fonts, flash, codecs and all that sorted out they’ll see a huge bunch of people switching, I’d pay for it.
Then there are the fonts. Anti-aliasing is an optional extra on Linux, and I wasn’t willing to do the sources.list wrangling to get the bleeding-edge allegedly-anti-aliased Emacs. Also, lots of fonts Windows & Mac people use every day just aren’t there on Linux. There are apparently some gyrations and downloads and things you can do to get some of them.
I couldn’t get Flash working (complaints about the amd64 architecture), which meant lots of irritating little holes in Web pages everywhere. Not being able to watch YouTube is a real time-saver, though.
I think people want to just get on with it and not have to muck about with bullshit options these-days, I’m sick of fiddling with fiddly software to get simple things working, and that’s the achilles heel of Linux Desktops.
UPDATE: Scoble also sounds in on the font issue, he mentions the cost of real fonts and so forth and also calls them the achilles heel for Linux, freaky.
by R.I. Pienaar | Mar 14, 2006 | Front Page
When I was in Sydney around 2000 there was a Russian protype space shuttle on display, before then I didn’t even know something like it existed.
It was called Buran which means blizzard or snowstorm in russian. The specific one on display there never left the athmosphere it was just a test vehicle for the aero dynamics etc but the program did get a craft up in space and back down to earth safely.
Wikipedia has an entry on the Buran in general, it mentions this specific Buran:
The OK-GLI test vehicle was fitted with four jet engines mounted at the rear (the fuel tank for the engines occupied a quarter of the cargo bay). This Buran could take off under its own power for flight tests, in contrast to the American Enterprise test vehicle, which was entirely unpowered and relied on an air launch.
After the program was cancelled, OK-GLI was stored at Zhukovsky Air Base, near Moscow, and eventually bought by an Australian company, Buran Space Corporation. It was transported by ship to Sydney, Australia via Gothenburg, Sweden โ arriving on February 9, 2000 โ and appeared as a static tourist attraction under a large temporary structure in Darling Harbour for a few years.
Visitors could walk around and inside the vehicle (a walkway was built along the cargo bay), and plans were in place for a tour of various cities in Australia and Asia. The owners, however, went into bankruptcy, and the vehicle was moved into the open air, where it suffered some deterioration and vandalism.
Click the image above for my set of photos I took there.
