I am considering switching to Linux on the laptop. The choice is between Fedora Core and Xandros. I would have to buy the Xandros. I have the Fedora Core 1 CD's.

I would have to have access to my Windows data mostly the Word files are important. I will make this month's back up CD later today around mid-night.

I will also print off monthly copies of my blogs for hard copy reference and back up.

I also now think I have the first four Debian 3.0 r2 disks burnt on CD but trying to install on the Duron box the 2.4 kernel did not work. It stalled on the drivers and modules section install.

I got an addware program by accident on my laptop. I was downloading napster from www.napster.ca when I got it. I phoned a business journalist who did a piece on napster and alerted him. Now my Internet Explorer won't work on my laptop. I am not sure how I will update WinXP anymore.

Soon it will be time to back up my laptop to CD again. I will do that next Monday. Tonight I will do a zip disk back up of my personal files.

I worked on my old 486 laptop project early this morning. Soon I hope the 16MB DRAM PCMCIA card will arrive and I will install Debian 3.0 r2. I got the ethernet PCMCIA card working a bit by experimenting with modconf and loading and unloading modules in the kernel. I got the traffic lights to light up on the router and the cable coming out of the ethernet card, the dongle. But they would not blink meaning no transmission is happening. I was also not able to ftp from the laptop. I decided to scrap the x install and work on getting some programming done using the GNU compiler collection and maybe using Elvis and trying out it's highlight syntax functions. I also tried to install tex.

Looks like I will be using my WinXP laptop a lot as I am in school again. That is the main function of this laptop is that it is a school work tool.

In first year a couple of people advised me to put in twice as many out of class study hours as classroom hours in first year university. One of them also said in fourth year one would need to put in even more hours. In this fourth year law course I have put in 33 hours so far outside of class. I have put in 4.5 hours class time so far. So right now out of class to in class has a ratio of 33 to 4.5 or 7.33.

I have a computer slide show started on emergency preparedness and GIS for this course. I also have a paragraph or two started for my course paper. I did both of these study tasks with Open Office (www.openoffice.org).

I have to take my WinXP laptop to school today for a lecture. It is raining a little so I will have to wrap it in a bag inside my laptop bag.

I am writing and researching another school paper on the WinXP laptop. I am also using the eMac fairly constantly. I think the Linux projects will be on hold for a while to reduce stress.

I had some thoughts tonight of beginnning and continuing to study for the LPI 101 certification again. But I can't afford anything extra right now and one of my domain names is up for renewal and I have an idea for a new domain name to point to this blog.

Here is an interesting UN web page with plenty of articles about computers. http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2003/issue4/Digital.asp. Have a look at a few of the articles.

Status Report

• The Win XP IBM T30 laptop is fine and backed up.
• The eMac is fine but not backed up.
• The IBM 325 PC server is fine for NT 4.0 and on the linux side the Fedora has problems with launching X.
• The debian 2.1 laptop the thinkpad 360 is robust but not networked and no X yet.
• The duron is not working right now.
• I am think of buying a Mac OS 7.5 disk on ebay this week for my Quadra.

It is like the teenage view of popularity in my mind. My mind is wrong but here is the thought: Computer work became popular. I don't want to work in something popular. I used to work in computers when they were not popular. Now the right thing to say: I resent that others earn money working with computers, while I have not made a lot of money doing this. But that is changing I am working in computers now. Related to this I bought a cheap copy of Cyberselfish yesterday. It cost 3.99 CND.

I have four iso images downloaded now for Debian 3.0 r2 dated end of 2003. I want to volunteer on the Debian project.

I have volunteered on the Open Office project by demonstrating Open Office use at Open Source Weekend this past march.

I will need to be using ssh for some web master work this spring but am thinking and considering whether I want to do this volunteer gig.

I have the first four debian 3 r2 iso images downloaded now.

I tried to fix my Fedora by reinstalling from CD. I let it find the previous install but no luck with fixing it. I seem to have x problems but the command line is fine.

I downloaded Debian 3.0 r2 disks 1 & 2 since yesterday.

I am presently downloading the iso image for the debian 3.0 r2 disk 1 on my WinXP laptop.

I may buy some blank CD's and try to burn the latest Debian version. I have Debian 3 but before the security flaw was found last fall. This would be downloaded and burned on the WinXP laptop and would be my first attempt at making ISO CD's on this laptop.

Today I need to print some agenda's for a union meeting.

I am just doing routine computer tasks these past two days. I took back the C++ learning book to the library.

I gave up on the Duron box again. I am now starting my research on the TP 360SC.

I am going to try to adjust the X windows on the Turbo Linux setting the monitor to a G70. I am also going to set a low colour resolution.

I am also going to do some research this morning to get the Thinkpad 360SC networked. I got the Thinkpad 360SC a used 16MB memory upgrade and will be attempting to install Debian 3.0 later this month.

I am starting another school course so my time availabel to work on computer work will be limited. I will of course be using my TP T30 quite a bit for school work along with my two Epson printers. I need to get another black ink cartridge for my Epson 700.

I have retreated to my laptop for now. I don't want to get very frustrated at the moment. I found out I did not do very well on my legal issues in ecommerce course. I am just relaxing writing my blogs this morning.

For some reason my Fedora machine has crashed. It no longer boots up to X windows. This happened right after the update yesterday morning.

My turbo linux machine seems ok but it also had X die today. I will boot it up again right now and check it to rule out general X windows problems everywhere.

The Duron seems to be booting just fine. Yes X windows still works there but there is an error message at log in and this second Linux machine does connect to the net yet.

I tried to get a better X config but this failed. So I lost a low power X configuration and will now be adjusting it. There is some bomb file called Core in the root directory. I am not sure what this is.

I am preparing to write some more of my protest dtd tonight. Not sure I will actually write anymore of it. I will do it on the Fedora machine, LEAVES. I got the text editing program to print out my dtd in hard copy with XML highlighting in colour.

I am updating Fedora right now

I might study some SAS tonight on my Thinkpad. I might try to do some web mastering too on the Thinkpad.

I chatted using the undernet server on channel #linux earlier tonight.

It should be a long night studying code and maybe staying up for a speech tomorrow on global governance at school.

I quit my www.zip.ca membership before the trial period ended. Internet shopping? Somewhat pricey.

I am more comfortable now with on-line shopping. I am using www.zip.ca to rent dvd's for instance.

I studied a little basic C++ programming this morning.

Yesterday I printed this blog out in rough copy and added it to my ecommerce legal issues notebook as a hard copy of my computer work.

I hope to do a little web mastering today on the ERN web site. I have to perfect some downloads of PDF's for a conference.

I updated this blog's byline or subheadline.

I bought an HP CD writer plus 8200e for a friend. We got it working fine using HP's RecordNow software. I also used this software for my old HP CD writer plus 8000 which I put in a USB external enclosure and got working with my laptop. My old 20GB backup IDE hard drive would not work in this enclosure but the CD writer works so hey.

I printed out all my blogs for rough copy binders. This is public information. It is non-protected class A data.

I also backed up my laptop as I do at the end of each month.