Monday, June 28, 2004

I stopped all my instant message programs from starting up on the boot up of my IBM T30 computer. My boot up was so slow. I suspect it is either, these messenger programs or the virus scan or maybe some unknown spy ware.

I am using Microsoft Publisher 97 to do some work today and tomorrow. I got this software for a donation to the National Capital Freenet in late 1999.

Sunday, June 27, 2004

I am taking the Bell and Howell video camera back to the department store today for a refund. It only takes 3 minutes of video and did not state that in the product advertisment. If they do not take it back I believe I have an action in small claims court.

Saturday, June 26, 2004

I bought a video camera from the Hudson's Bay Company. I was not going to get a video camera but they dropped the price 300$. But that was not enough because the camera although a Bell and Howell branded camera is a little on the cheap side. I need to learn this about major department stores. Anyways I now have a battery operated web cam. I could have for the same money perhaps bought a netcam. But this camera I got is also small and will work well as a mobile surveillance system for my trips around town. I probably don't know enough people to use this for video conferencing. For that I can use Yahoo or Netmeeting, but I can't use iChat with this webcam.
I sold a Thinkpad power supply just now. I sold it to a fellow member of the OCLUG.

Friday, June 25, 2004

I am able to network my home computers now. I was able to use ftp on the 360SC Thinkpad and log into the eMac computer. I was also able to see the share folder on the T30 Thinkpad from my eMac.

I am now starting to create an FAQ for Linux beginners for our OCLUG web site FAQ's.

Thursday, June 24, 2004

I have just been learning R. It works fine in WinXP and also works without graphics on the Thinkpad 360 running Debian 3. I was able to read the preface and work through part of the beginners sample.

Sunday, June 20, 2004

I installed R on the IBM TP T 30 under WinXP. I also installed xemacs and configured xemacs to run ESS and run directly to R. I tried the demo(graphics) command in R and it worked with this set up. I can now use xemacs on the WinXP laptop.
I was asked to help my dad network his two Mandrake laptops. I found ifconfig in the sbin directory. We ran ifconfig which gave us the present 192.168.0.X IP addesses for his laptops. Then he could ssh to the other laptop.

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

I was able to install R version 1.8 on the Thinkpad 360SC. It seemed to work. But also installing it on the eMac showed that when demo(graphic) was used as a command version 1.9 of R ran screens of charts and pictures that of course just did not show up on the old 486.

I am buying some more ink for the Epson Photo Stylus 700 this week. I was able to print my essay on the Epson colour stylus 440 ok. It seems I now need to print at best quality to get perfectly readable text. I think this is perhaps the age of the printer causing it to degrade but it could also be the quality of the ink I am using.

I posted two emails to the OCLUG, this weekend and Monday. Both emails were status reports rather than problems described.

Saturday, June 12, 2004

I didn't use my computers much yesterday. I was out of the house for about 5 hours yesterday and didn't use anything but my own Palm when out. At home I printed a 12 page essay and used email. I also downloaded some work related files from two different employers.

I tried to install Debian 3.0.23 twice yesterday on the Duron box but failed both times. I can get the base system installed but task selection and dselect failed. On the second attempt the initialisation of the root directory partition failed.

I did not use my computers while my guests were over. After they left I immediately used my eMac.

Friday, June 11, 2004

My email activity today has helped me orgainse much volunteer work and made my life much better.
I forgot to turn the projector on at the beginning of my in class presentation. I have sent this presentation as an email attachment to geographers in Australia and also the USA.

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Blog error.
I may need to use R for statistics. R is available for GNU. Therefore I need to get a GNU machine working.

I have installed the base system and I think a few compilers on the Thinkpad 360SC. So I have a functioning basic Linux system now.

Xandros is now available as a free download. This was mentioned on the Ottawa Canada Linux users Group email list today by someone from Xandros. I will download it later.

Today I have to use a data projector at school. I will play a slide show from Open Office on my laptop and show my presentation on GIS and emergency response in class tonight. I have also printed the slides on paper using a laser printer at the school's library. I printed on both sides of the page. I chatted with Heather Cross our library help person. She has a sociology MA and a Law and sociology BA from Carleton.

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

I used my Palm, my eMac and my Thinkpad T30 yesterday. I did some email, some web pages with composer and wrote an essay. I also used my blogs and family reported reading my blogs and I had an email discussion about blogs. I backed up my palm. I printed some work related stuff. I, in fact, used two printers yesterday and today with no errors using the set default printer appropriately. I watched my supervisor use a computer at school to print something from a textbook CD. I chatted ever so briefly with my brother usng iChat. I used and managed email lists.

Monday, June 07, 2004

I was unable to install Debian 3.0 so far on the Thinkpad 360SC.
I did manage to make my May back up CD of my laptop. I did not back up email or favorite/bookmark web pages though. I lost all my netscape email after I configured netscape to use Norton Internnet Security. What's that they say about badley configured security software is more dangerous than no security software?

Saturday, June 05, 2004

These are the computer related books I borrowed on Thursday night after my LAWS4701 class taught by Chris McNaught.
Wall, David, ed. Crime and the Internet (London, Routledge, 2001).
This book suggests that neither a big crime or no crime has occurred because of the Internet. Rather a lot of minor small crimes have occurred and we still aren't sure what, where, why, who, when and how the Internet is existing and changing existence. It is a collection of papers about Internet crime by criminologists from the UK. I have not read much of it yet.
Grabosky, Peter & Smith, Russell G. & Dempsey, Gillian. Electronic Theft: Unlawful Acquisition in Cyberspace (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
This book examines cybercrime but in particular theft using computers.
Zylinska, Joanna ed. The Cyborg Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age (London: Continuum, 2002).
I don't know what this book is about yet.
Gray, Chris Hables. cyborg citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age (New York: Routledge, 2001).
This book examines briefly all kinds of cyborgs but the main theme is the politics of the cyborg age in particular participatory politics. So this book is both maybe a green politics book and also in the subfield of political science studies that I place my own political science studies. I am tempted to read more of this book but also tempted not too.

Friday, June 04, 2004

I am installing Debian 3.0 on my Thinkpad 360SC. I am doing it as a network install. I got this Thinkpad a 8MB memory upgrade. It now has 20MB of memory.
I did it I got www.cyb.org to point to this blog. I will know pay the fee to get the adds off this blog.

Wednesday, June 02, 2004

The back up on CD failed on the winxp laptop. Also after installing Norton Anti-Virus firewall I lost all my netscape mail for the past few months which is a pain.

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

I hard copy backed up my two blogspot blogs but these are only in rough reading copies for carrying around with me. In a minute to two I will burn the my documents folder of this PC to CD for the month's end back up of same folder. It is about 3 years of laptop computing in that folder involving two different laptops.
I am frustrated with Linux. It is not worth all this trouble to have an open software that is free to use. Although I have in the past been frustrated with Windows too. I would say only the Mac is not frustrating at the same level. Maybe it just because I try to do so much with computers and own too many of them.