It's working but...

Well, I got the MythTV setup working on my spare box. However, due to the fact that I have a very, very old TV tuner card in it, it is not as capable as I would like. Sound is not very good (compared to what I am used to) and the video tuner can only pump out resolutions in the 320x480 range (for those of you who may have played Diablo or Diablo II, that resolution was 640x480 as a comparison).

They have other tv tuner cards out there, and if I want to be very happy with my setup, I'll have to get one. Alas, probably not until I get back from Vegas and know exactly where I stand with my spending money will I be able to do that.

At least I know I can do it now, so at least I have the knowledge of how to setup the system.

Computer Geek fun...

Tonight is going to be fun. I get to tear a computer apart, put it back together and build it into something I've wanted for a long time - a TIVO. Ummm, wait, I can't call it that, that would be illegally using a copyrighted name. Let's call it my Myth(TV)-buster. Think TIVO with free software and cheap hardware. Yep, a frugal computer geek. Oh well, you just can't fight your own nature, can you?

I will also be watching whatever rerun episode of BSG is on tonight. I am assuming it is a rerun since the season finale was last week, but SciFi does things so differently than old TV, I don't know. Maybe if I get paragraph one done, I can actually watch the next season of BSG without having to wait for reruns, eh? :)

Grandma...

is very sick. I just got word today that they have moved her to a full out nursing home (she had been in an assisted living apartment). My mom is very upset, which means I'm not doing too well either. I don't like seeing my mom or dad confused or distressed, and she is both (but trying to hide it, making it all the worse).

My grandma is nearly 90 years old. She has lived through much trial and tribulation. She was born during the First Great War. She was 12 (almost 13) on Black Monday in 1929. She rolled cigars for $0.05/day during the Great Depression when she was 16 years old. She met and married my grandfather after he had finished his stint in the CCC (I can't tell you what year, because I don't remember how many year's ago we held their 65th anniversary party). They had what was considered a "good Catholic" family. My grandma bore and raised 14 children, my mother is the oldest. My grandfather used to joke that all he had to do was look at her and she was pregnant again. After most of my aunts and uncles were out of the house, my grandma felt lonely and that she needed to help more in the community. So my grandparents became foster parents for babies. They had something like 158 foster children come through their home, usually only for a few weeks or months until they were adopted or their biological parent's were seen as fit to raise them again.

She is my last surviving grandparent (her husband died a few years back from Alzheimer's and my dad's parents died in the 60's before I was born). She has osteo. For some reason, this sticks in my memory so much because I haven't been able to hug her like when I was little for a long time (I love to give and get bear hugs -- they are the best thing ever invented).

Oh, yeah, the baby breads!!! My grandma used to make the best homemade white bread ever, and she used to make these little loaves for the grandkids (yes, all 30+ of us). I've always been a math/arithmetic geek, some would say good at numbers. And I would count the loaves and the grandkids when I got there. And there was always one for each of us. Well, we were all greedy little sh*ts, and we'd go in and "steal" more than one (my cousin Tony and I about 5 or 6 each :)). Magically, more little loaves would appear so that no one got cheated. We all got at least one, no matter what. I remember trying to figure that puzzle out every time. :)

Musical day...

You ever have one of those days that you just want to lay around and listen to music? Today was that day for me.

I must have listened to hundred's of songs from my CD collection. Thank goodness I moved all of my music to my hard drive, or else my "cave" would have been an absolute mess of CD's and CD cases.

Okay, now I'm going to jump right in and ask you, reader to do me a favor. I am going to throw down my list of my favorite top 5 all time albums (albums, not specific musicians or bands or songs, something to pop in and listen from track 1 to track xxx). You'll find my musical tastes land all over the place, but I do have a basic theme. My favor to ask is for you to search your collection and let me have your top 5 all time albums (see my definition above). You can tell me why they are your top 5, or you can just list them. I would like to add to my collection, but I don't like spending money on a "one good song" CD. That's part of why I haven't added to my collection for several years.

Okay, here's mine:

1. Metallica - Master of Puppets - My reason is that this was my first introduction to what has become my favorite band of all time. It's hammering style and lyrics helped me through some tough times (Damage, Incorporated is one of my top 5 favorite headbanging songs).

2. Megadeth - Peace Sells...But Who's Buying? - Again, first introduction to one of my favorite bands outside of Metallica (Dave Mustaine was part of Metallica at the beginning). Odd, but some of it's lyrics are self-destructive and those same lyrics helped me through and out of some of my most self-destructive phases. Not sure how that works, but it did.

3. AC/DC - Highway to Hell - Favorite album of my second most favorite band of all time (right behind Metallica). Just a great "fun" album. Sex, drugs and rock n roll, I don't think there is a serious bone in any of their bodies. Best album with Bon Scott singing.

4. Suzanne Vega - 99.9 fahrenheit degrees - Doesn't quite fit with the others above does it? Hmm, just great lyrics and awesome music to back them up. I can pop this in and listen to it over and over and over. Every song is worth listening to.

5. Everlast - Eat at Whitey's - This was a difficult decision, but I think I have to give this one it's props. Solid all the way from Whitey to Graves to Dig.

Biggest competitor to #5 was the Motion Picture Soundtrack to Heavy Metal. Biggest problem with that one is I just can't make myself listen to Open Arms by Air Supply - makes me want to run screaming from the room. But it does have my favorite love song (yes, I actually do have a favorite love song), which is Don Felder's "All of You".

Movie watching...

I watched two movies back to back tonight...SAW and SAW II.

Only comment, don't watch them alone in the dark, in the basement...especially the first.

SAW II's final twist is a little too twisty. Too bad, the rest of the movie was pretty good up to the last 10 minutes or so.

Hijacking the Internet

That is the title of an editorial in PC Magazine by John C. Dvorak.

Here is a link to the article: Hijacking the Internet

(This is the first time I've tried linking an article, so if it doesn't work, please tell me so I can try again).

This is important stuff, people. I've heard some of your discussions about different things and how they are socially unjust. This is one of them. Look beyond the monetary issues he brings up, look to who the monetary issues will truly and deeply hurt. I'm thinking school districts off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are plenty of others that you can come up with better than I.

While I typically am not against big business (a lot of my company's clients are big business or government), I am against any possibility of choking off information. And I see that as a definite possible fallout of what is discussed in his editorial.

Edit: I should have kept reading my magazine. This article was on the next page after the one above. Any Skype user's out there that use it's conferencing capabilities? Have a Mac older than the newest (i.e. using the PPC)? How about people like me, who use AMD processors? I guess Intel is pissed 'cause their losing ground to AMD in the technology race. This shouldn't be that big a deal to the common user, but I call BULLSHIT!!! on Intel and Skype.

Software Infringement

I hate it. I admit, I used to do it. I used an illegal copy of Windows XP Professional for a long time. But, without the updating possibility (Microsoft finally got the idea that people were copying their software...only took them 10 years), it was not a safe system at all. And when it got hacked by spyware, it was horrible not being able to update it. So I gave it up and blew all of my hacked software up.

Why, you might ask? Well, I finally came to a stark realization - their business is very similar to mine. I am an engineering consultant. I sell my ideas and services. How pissed would I be if an owner took my design and sold it to someone else with my stamp on it? Well, really pissed is putting it lightly. Hell, if he used it on a different piece of land I'd be pissed because he could be putting his own safety at risk!

So I took that idea to heart. If I want to own something now, I pay for it. I admit that I try to pay as little as possible (I wait for games to come down in price, I try to get as much freeware and shareware as possible, etc), but I do pay what the writer of that software feels is a fair and just price. That goes for movies, music, etc as well. I know it's tempting. Hell, I can still copy CD's and DVD's all I want still, but it's wrong.

In a twisted way, it's kind of selfish paying for stuff like this. It means that the people who made the software, music, movie will make money and will hopefully make more good stuff with the money, thereby making more money and so on and so forth. It doesn't always work that way but... So it basically means I get to see newer and cooler stuff all the time.

And don't make the argument that it's only a few cents per copy, so it doesn't really affect the person selling it...bullshit! If you look at it that way, can I take one hour of your paycheck every paycheck? It's only a little bit of money...these people work just as hard as you do!

End of Rant (can you tell someone I work with had lots of pirated software on his computer at home? he caught this rant in person, so consider yourself lucky, you didn't have to see my red face and bulging vein on my forehead.)

One last OS post (it's getting old, I know:))

Okay, here's the last post on this, then I'm off to find something else interesting to talk about.

I have come upon a use for this technology for the "normal" user (i.e. somebody who just wants the dang thing to work and do what it's supposed to do).

Imagine you are a Windows user. Lots of issues with virus', spyware, things that make your OS go "poof" no good. (I reiterate, Windows is actually a fairly secure piece of software, if you don't strip the security like most users do). Okay, now imagine you have this new VT technology on your machine. You can make a pristine system as a backup, say use 1/3 of your hard drive. Use a copy of said pristine system. When something goes caphlooey (sp?), you just make a new copy of your old pristine system and you are back up and running that fast. Figure on a backup from the "used" machine to the pristine machine once a week (hell, set it automatically and have it back up once a day). That way it's just a few steps from where you really want it (i.e. you don't lose some specific tweak to a setting you just made).

The same can be said for Mac or Linux, but for those systems it would be more valuable when you are upgrading OS's (say Mac from Jaguar to Tiger or whatever Thundercat is next, say OpenSuSE Linux from 10.0 to 10.1). That way if the new system OS accidentally/purposely screws with some of your settings, you can go back to your old machine and function until you can figure out how to get it not to do the screwing of your settings (you would do the new OS on a seperate virtual machine, allowing you to save your old machine).

I also see it as a great way to test stuff. I could test different distro's of Linux to see what one is easiest to use, without having to do all of the crap I have to do now (I'd actually like to build a system for friends if I can get one friendly enough, so they could see what it is like without too many headaches).

And I really would like to see Mac on a box other than Apple hardware. It's a great OS, it really is. It just works, like I said in my last post. I just have a lot of trouble justifying the additional cost of the hardware. The Mac is really not going to be much different anymore from IBM boxes with the new Intel chips. And, with Mac supporting the OpenSource community in their round about fashion, I believe I need to at least back that up a little bit. (Darwin is Mac OS X's developer's OS and is completely free...it's basically Mac OS X minus some of the features that make the Mac you buy down the street so dang user friendly. But most developer's don't need the bells and whistles, they need something to write code in.)

And there are hackers getting Mac OS to work on an IBM compatible as we speak, and that leads to my next post -- software infringement.

OS's (from a critic)

Okay, I got one of the response's I was looking for. An "I hate Microsoft Windows" response. I was kind of hoping for a "I hate Macintosh" response too, but there just aren't that many Windows users that actually dislike Macintosh. They just think it's a silly little box.

Now my own comments on OS's (from a geeks standpoint, always looking for a new toolbox):

Windows

Pros: 1. XP is by far the best OS that Microsoft has published. Built on NT, it can actually be secure (unfortunately, in the name of "user friendliness", it is stripped of it's security teeth by most folks). And it's 100% more stable than any prior (I have personally never seen a BSOD in Windows XP, although I have heard of them).
2. (Yes, Virginia, there are more than one Pros for Windows) Flat out numbers...something along the line of 95% of desktops use Windows. Makes it easy for a software publisher to justify writing software for this OS. I mean, why try to sell to a 4.9% market share or a 0.1% market share when you can get the rest of the shares?
3. Due to number 2. above, really slick programs...very nifty games, probably some of the best financial software out there, a decent office suite. Again, it goes back to money. People are drawn to money (like I said, programmers have to eat too).

Cons: 1. Well, (Evil) Empire says it best. I really dislike tyrants, so this is a bit of a personal dislike for Mr. Gates, not so much Microsoft Windows, so it's not really a con, more of a personal statement.
2. Due to the stripped security of most users (they don't know or don't care about their own security), it's a wide open to hack OS. Not good. Plus, with the numbers Pros above, goes the numbers cons: why hack and steal from 4.9% or 0.1% of the market when you can hack and steal from 95% of the market?

Question to all of the philosopher types out there, because this question is difficult in my mind: If the creator of something is evil, does it automatically make the thing created evil? Is the reverse true? In other words, if the thing created is evil, is the creator evil? Hmm, that one will take a bit of noodling for me to even understand the question, I think.

Mac OS X

Pros: It works...it just works. Rock solid stability and good security. Part of the good security is also one of it's cons.

Cons: 1. Numbers, this time on the low side. Why write software (or hack/virus/spyware) for only 4.9% of the market when you can write it for 95%? Not quite as many nifty pieces of software, but what there is follows the pros for Mac OS X - it just works!
2. Expensive, expensive, expensive...I alluded to this in my excited first geek post. If you want to use Mac OS X, you have to buy Apple hardware. Well, that's just freaking silly to me. Why buy a box that is SLOWER and NOT AS CAPABLE as one I can get for approximately $500-$700 cheaper? That's just crazy talk...seriously, it's crazy! But hardware sales is actually where Apple was making a lot of its money before iPod and all of the iPod derivatives out there. And unfortunately, where they will continue needing to make their money even after the Intel shift. So they will still be more expensive.

Personal comment about iPod and derivatives thereof: Jobs has learned a lot from Gates' business plan. Lockout competition and you'll do well...I'm not sure I'm so impressed by Apple's business plan anymore.

Finally, Linux

Pros: It's free. Yep, 100% free. Great for servers, including game servers. STABLE. SECURE. Did I mention it's free? Due to one of its cons, the missing software, programmers have had to come up with things like WINE and CEDEGA so that Windows programs can be run in Linux (not through emulation, but through using, well, let's just say it works without emulation). AWESOME, and I do mean AWESOME community! Yes, you may get flamed when you ask a question, but you know what? It's just kidding, not so much the nasty stuff you may get elsewhere. You know how I know that? You also get the answer you're looking for with the flames!

Cons: Well, there are a lot. I keep alluding to 0.1% market share - well that's Linux. Not as many people writing software, not as many really cool and pretty pieces of software. But enough to function (i.e. Mozilla backs them up, so Firefox and Thunderbird are fully compatible). It is more difficult to use than either Windows or Mac OS X, but when you figure it out, it's really not that bad. But the first trips are interesting...

I'm sure I missed a couple of pros and cons (I'm not perfect, just like any of these OS's).

I have other rants from my geekiness, but my final comment is this - all of the major OS's out there have pros and cons. All of them work. Which you choose to use should be based on what tools you need to have. Me, I like having all the tools (even though I may never use them - HA!).

Clarifying my geekiness...

I have received several comments out here in the real world as to my geekiness, especially pertaining to my post of a week or so ago dealing with VT technology and OS's.

I feel I need to clarify exactly WHY I think that stuff is so exciting.

Ask yourself this: Have you ever wanted to do something on your computer and not been allowed because you didn't have the right OS? I believe Mac OS users (whether it be X or prior) probably noted this mostly on the gaming front, but I believe there are also some video capture things etc. that have been out of reach. From my Linux box, my biggest miss from the Windows world was games, games and more games. I've spent a lot of time getting the few games I have working just to work in Linux. And when I ran Windows, I wished it was more secure. I've had to sacrifice my "fun" for security. I feel its a fair trade right now.

Basically, I view a computer as a tool, no, a tool box. It has the tools that we need to be able to use to complete our work, have our fun, or whatever inside of itself. This technology will allow us to consolidate three (or more) toolboxes into one. This probably seems like not much of a big deal to most home users, but to a geek like me, this gives me the option to finally get back to 2 computers (one laptop and one desktop). And it should open up doors to use tools from other OS's for other users. For example, security is tremendously good on the Unix/Linux/BSD side of things. So run your Mac OS X (a derivative of FreeBSD) or Linux box for anything you need secure (work, finances, email, web surfing, etc). But you know that Windows has the best game in the world you're just dying to play. Now you can do both on the same box. Say when you play the game, your Windows machine gets a virus (sonofab*tch!!). Well, your Windows machine is actually a file on your computer. You backed it up a few days ago before the virus. Overwrite your virus ridden machine with a copy of the backed up version. Poof! You're good to go again, full bore, no virus (Yayyyy!!!!) Maybe 5 minutes of game play lost. No screwing with trying to "kill" the virus. No reloading the entire OS and all the pieces of software. Now, you have to get back to that paper/report/design that's due next week. Okay, "close" your windows box. Open your Mac box/Linux box (another tab/button on the screen). Poof! You're back to work! No turning the machine off. No extra box/hardware to have laying around. Just a couple of extra clicks on the screen.

There is, of course, one downside...if you want to do this, it will be expensive this first year due to hardware. But there is another cost...you will still have to have a legal copy of Windows (whatever version you prefer) or Mac OS X.

I'll say my piece about that in my next post.

Whatta day, oh, whatta day!!!

I just got photos of my new "nephew"...Luke is out of NICU!!! Hooray!!! Cute little guy...I finally get to spoil a nephew. You see, I have 8 nieces in my extended family, and before last Wednesday, I had exactly zero, that's 0, nephews.

Today was a nice relaxing day, followed by great news!

I do believe this is a very good day!

C's sermon...

I went to see C give his service here at FUS in Madtown today. As I expected, it was excellent. Seeing him in his element is very fun for me. A lot of people wander through their lives going to jobs they hate, loving their paychecks. Some of us work our tails off toward what we see our goal is and get to love both the job and the paycheck.

I am a very happy friend. :) I think C is going to get to do both.

K's impact on me...

Yesterday I posted about a mother and child having a rough go of it. I am sitting here thinking about her, and what she has done for me since I met her.

She saved my scholastic career, and she did it without even knowing it.

I was 4 weeks into my first semester of my master's program. And I was miserable. I think it was homesickness combined with feeling old. Homesick, because I'd never been that far from my home state before for an extended period of time. And it's amazing how different our attitudes are from one place to another in this great country of ours. Feeling old, well, let's just say there wasn't another student in my program that was over the age of 23, and here I was about to hit that 30 mark. I just didn't feel I fit in quite right. I was about a week away from packing it in and heading for home.

So what did she do, you ask, that was so special? She decorated my desk (I was a TA) with all of the black balloon, black confetti, etc that our society hits us with at the landmark birthdays.

It gave me one of those "I have to go to the bathroom" moments (i.e. I need to compose myself, splash some water to wash the tears, etc). Here was this person who barely even knew me spending her time, energy and money decorating my desk. Seems like a small thing, but I was so touched...I instantly knew if I threw more of my effort into it, I was going to fit in nicely here. So I stayed, finished school, and I am better off for it. Made a couple of those lifelong friends like her, and a bunch of those lifelong acquaintances that are so important for balance.

I used to laugh at people who said the small things can make a huge impact...

Mostly a down day...

I usually like to start with the good news...especially when my day started off with some bad news...

One Up: I was lucky enough to get Red Cross First Aid/CPR/AED training today. I know it doesn't seem like much. Getting a little bit of training when you have lots of unbillable time at work is a great relief of the tedium (i.e. it gave me something to do!!! :)). Plus, I hope it's training I never have to use, so it seems odd to count it as an up. But it was interesting.

One (Major) Down: One of my best friends when I was getting my masters degree just had her first child. Normally, I would call this a major up...unfortunately, that cannot be the case. She had little Luke on Wednesday night after almost 20 hours of labor, at which time they decided he wasn't coming on his own and they performed a Caesarian to bring the little guy into the world. Obviously, after 20 hours, there were two extremely tuckered out and beat up individuals, plus lots of worried friends and family. This morning (Friday), they had to put the little one in NIC (lungs problem). Not a good way to start the day. If you believe in the power of prayer, give him one. If not, please keep him in your thoughts. I know that bad things happen to good people, but the little guy hasn't even had a real chance to be good or bad yet...

Two (pretty major) Down: I finally discussed seriously with one of my hunting partners about the possibility of purchasing some hunting land together. There is a back story, but that's a little personal to be putting out there for the world to see. Unfortunately, the deal is out the door. No real possibility of making our old plan happen at this point. And no real hope of a new plan on the horizon. Guess I'll just have to plan on spending my money on a house instead of hunting land...

Seems the down outweighs the up right now...:(

Cool Stuff (to an OS geek like me)

I've been reading some very exciting things lately on the computer OS side of things. I am hoping that it will pan out to be at least half as exciting as it looks.

Here's the basic idea: Imagine a computer that you can have Windows XP, openSuSE Linux, kubuntu Linux, Slackware Linux, Mac OSX (maybe), DOS, Unix, FreeBSD, etc on. Yes, all of them. Yes, together. Yes, at the SAME TIME!!! Yes, with a minor hit in performance (nothing like the current emulators though). But, even with the hit in performance, it still ID's all of your hardware as what it actually is (not emulated weak old hardware).

It's coming, soon. Apple has promised to activate the VT portions on their new Intel chips. Microsoft is of course not playing really nice and cooperating completely (but it won't matter soon). Linux has already adapted completely (amazing, imagine a community that actually helps each other out for something outside of monetary gains, but they still gotta eat -- support your freeware/shareware vendors!!!!) And AMD will have VT enabled on all of their CPU's sometime near mid-year this year (similar to the Intel, but different and maybe better).

It's going to take me some money, but once Christmas time comes, I'll be having me a machine with VT...aaahhhh finally able to play Windows games (for my fun stuff) and use the stable/safe and helpful Linux system for my web-surfing, email, word processing, work related stuff. And if anything goes wrong, be back up in minutes vs hours...sooooooo coooool. And I'd get Mac OSX if Apple would let it be installed on non-Apple hardware...too bad they won't make a slightly more expensive release for non-Apple hardware. All on one box, together -- so OS won't matter anymore. No more dual boot (well, I guess I don't anymore anyway, but I could if I wanted). No more two machines side by side.

Flexibility is important in everything we do...

Last Saturday

Last Saturday was a challenge for me.

Saturday, I didn't get more than 5 hours sleep (I need 7 to be fully alert). No alcohol imbibed (good thing with the other parts). Highly stressed due to work concerns (mix with alcohol and you've got either a crying jig or a fight on your hands). 11 people in a room made for 6 tops (not the best for a socially skittish person such as myself).

Thank goodness that those other 10 people are pretty darn cool. I believe the quote of the day came from Jill and TP both, as they replied "I would rather have a dick." which was in response to my question "Would you rather have a boss who is an idiot or a dick?" I'm just guessing here, but they probably won't utter those words quite like that again.

It made the time fly (it's a good saying "Time flies when you are having fun"). Laughing with them, just enjoying their company.

Thanks to all for making what could have been a miserable day into a very fun day.

Oh, yeah...Happy Birthday, C!