Hard to believe it has been 15-years since Windows 95 was released. The operating system which introduced the ‘Start’ Menu, which forever changed the way people shut-down their computers. The Seattle Pi/Microsoft Blog have a tribute to Windows 95 including several rather odd marketing commercials..
The blog may be inaccessible due to server maintenance starting at 12:00 AM MST on Friday, July 16th. The maintenance should only take a couple hours at the most.
It wasn’t all that long ago I moved the blog off the Quick Blogcast on to WordPress.com. It was just a little over 3-months ago I made that move. Today I moved the blog on to WordPress.org. I decided I would give WordPress.org a try to see how easy it is to work with and what options are available here that are not with the WordPress.com.
I do not have any plans on moving the other two blogs (Email Mafia and FF Extension Guru) any time soon. So far the only issue I ran into was with the YouTube videos. WordPress.com has a short-cut for embedding YouTube in the blog entries. This short-cut does not carry over to WordPress.org. There were only a dozen or so YouTube posts I had to edit and update using the YouTube embed code.
Themes work a little differently over here on WordPress.org as there is a lot more customization available. I am presently using 2010 Weaver with the Dark – 2 Left Sidebars (though I did switch down to 1 sidebar) sub theme. I am impressed at the level of customization that is available with this theme. When I have some more time I’ll take a deeper look at all the options.
I am not yet sure if the feed is going to automatically update. If you find your feed is not updating resubscribe by clicking the Entries RSS link at the bottom of the left sidebar in the Meta section.
Over the past couple years I have had several online photo albums, some free and some paid. I have now consolidated all them into a new online photo album at gallery.elguru.me using the application is Zen Photo. The application is free, but does require a web server/hosting account which supports PHP and MySQL.
The initial installation was a bit of challenge even with my knowledge of setting up applications it did take a little work getting my all PHP settings adjusted. I was also a little taken aback that I had to manually update the configuration file with my database server settings before I could run the install. I am use to other applications that do this for you as part of the install. However, once it is installed it is was very easy to use and customize.
Theme installation was fairly simple, just a matter of downloading the theme then uploading via FTP into the themes folder. Adding photos is fairly simple as well, you can either use the web-based uploader or FTP the photos into the album folder (which is a lot quicker for large amounts or large size photos). Also, unlike many other database driven applications (WordPress, Joomla, etc.), Zen Photo is very easy to move to another folder on your server. I discovered this as I had installed in a temporary location to test. So after moving the application, I just simply ran the setup again and signed in with my admin credentials it auto-magically updated all the URLs.
So far I like the way it has turned out and this should make it a lot easier for me to add more photos in the future.
Pay close attention to the weather report on the radio at the beginning of this Circle K commercial. Describes our current weather perfectly.
Note: I am posting this both on my personal El Guru and Firefox Extension Guru’s Blogs to get as much feedback as I can on this.
As some my long time Firefox Blog readers may recall I had experimented a bit back in 2007 with Linux Ubuntu. Never really got a chance to do much with it as about six-months after I had installed Ubuntu I had to replace the computer. Given everything I do online, I could not be without a computer for a few days. Because of this I could not go my usual route and have one custom built for me. So the same day I ended purchasing an HP Pavilion off-the-shelf which came installed with Windows Vista. For an off-the-shelf machine this HP is not too bad, except for the Windows Vista part. I know my way around Vista and it does what I need it to do, just so slowly. Heck to even shut-down takes about 2-3 minutes and a restart takes another 3 minutes or so. I really need to do a clean install of Windows Vista again, but if I am going to go through all that trouble I may just as well switch over to Linux.
I recently took a look at what I running and discovered about 95% of the applications I use could run on Linux. A couple exceptions would be Quicken, WinAmp and WeatherBug. WinAmp would not be that big of a deal as I really liked Amarok over WinAmp. Checking on WeatherBug’s site they have a beta available for Debian Linux distribution (Debian, Ubuntu, LinuxMint, etc), so that could work (beta software doesn’t bother me). Quicken is going to be an issue, but I suppose if I do go the dual-boot route I can boot into Windows for that (or find an Open Source equivalent or may be use Wine).
The big applications that I am always using are Firefox, Chrome (it handles Flash based games much better than Firefox) and Thunderbird. Firefox shouldn’t be too difficult to re-setup other then getting my extensions reinstalled (time to do some house keeping anyways) and importing my bookmarks (easy to do since I have to that about once a week at work). Last time I did Thunderbird, I had set it up so that it used my Windows profile. I won’t need to do that this time around as all four of email accounts I use in Thunderbird are setup IMAP so it should remain synced no matter which was I access my email. The only thing I will need to import is my contacts which should not be difficult. Chrome all I need to do with that is just install it (I am not even running any of the extensions).
For my web development work I use an old Open-Source application called NVU. Sadly this is not the most stable program in the world but it gets the job done. There is/was a Linux equivalent called KompoZer I would be interested in finding an Open Source HTML/WYSIWYG Editor. For FTP Client I use FileZilla and I know that is available for Linux.
Now, my two main concerns are installing Linux and some of the hardware I am using. I’ll address the hardware first as this relates to my install concerns. I am using a 24″ Acer Monitor set at a resolution of 1920×1080 in Windows. Back when I had Ubuntu with my 19″ running at 1440×900 I had quite the challenge being able to get Ubuntu to support that high of a resolution. Further I have a Western Digital My Book external USB hard drive. That shouldn’t be too difficult to get mounted within Linux. I use the drive primarily for back-up of my data.
When I ran Ubuntu in 2007 on my Windows XP machine I had installed on partition on a separate (from the drive with Windows XP) internal drive. This time around I don’t have this luxury, without going out and buying another (SATA) drive and trying to install it within this cramped case (hence the reason I bought the external). I have heard it is possible to re-partition the hard drive which Windows is installed on without damaging Windows. I have plenty of space (169 GB available) so should be plenty of room for Linux on the same drive.
So here are my concerns and questions in regards to trying do a dual-boot install of Linux:
So any feedback, advise, suggestions, success./horror stories, etc would be appreciated. This is something I am looking to be doing in the next month or so.
Most of the articles on The Microsoft Blog I don’t pay much attention to. However, the article Poll: Would Microsoft benefit from acquiring AOL? did catch my attention. I think I was more shocked that AOL is still around more so than Microsoft having interest in buying it.
I voted (as did the majority of the readers) No! AOL is nearly dead and would be a giant waste of money! I suppose Microsoft figures they still have plenty of money to waste. They’ve only had to pay out billions in settlements and judgments from class-action and anti-trust law suits. So what’s another couple billion to buy AOL?
Oracle has pushed out JAVA Version 6 Update 20 to address a sever security exploit. While I am usually pretty good about keeping my plugins such as JAVA updated I did notice I currently had Update 16 installed 
This update is for Windows, Linux and Solaris operating systems including Windows XP, Vista, 7 as well as Server 2003 & 2008. Note: This exploit currently affects users running 32-Bit browsers. To install the update simply go to java.com and click the big red Free Java Download button. The site will auto-detect your operating system and present you with the correct download.
Important Tips:
For more info see eSecuirty Planet
Buffers the video without autoplaying, removes in-video ads, and puts it in hd if the option is on
via YouTube Auto Buffer.
I have had this Aloe for nearly 10-years now. I believe this is the third pot it has been in as has outgrown the others. Last weekend I cleared out at least a dozen ‘off springs’, transplanting them into multiple pots. Over the past few years I have given a couple of these ‘off springs’ to my folks to help fill-in their backyard.
The nice thing about the Aloe being a desert plant is it really doesn’t need much water and will grow like a weed. While they may turn a light brown/beige color, they will survive for quite a while without water and even the extreme summer heat.
With all the rain we’ve had this past winter and spring it is very green this year and has produced a nice blooming stalk. Further for the first time, I am seeing another stalk coming off on the left side (right about leveled with the railing). The main stalk is about 3-feet tall right now and will die off in about another month or so, depending on the temperature and rain.
