Sunday, April 30, 2006

Debian 3.1 r 1 installed successfully

I was finally after numerous attempts able to install Debian 3.1 r 1a on the Compaq pentium 1 laptop. I will now need to see if I can get R installed and also project the screen of this laptop.
I can not install X windows on the iBook. I am tempted to upgrade to Panther. But for now I am broke so no new computer projects that cost money. Also about installing Debian 3.1 on the Compaq the pcmcia card does not boot when restarting after the base system has been installed and the computer reboots. I am having to install packages from CD's. I am attempting a Debian 3.1 install with the 3.2 GB hard drive that was originally in the iBook. I may have a little more time tonight/this morning to try this out.

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

The Jaguar Mac OS X 10.2 disks arrived. I just completed installing this OS on my iBook and am now updating the software. I also received a 60GB notebook drive that I will save for a future notebook project perhaps a Thinkpad dual boot Linux WinXP project this summer to use in grad school.

The Iomgea USB drive has been cleaned off and school work folders have been placed on that drive. I still need to make the third copies of some of the back up DVD's from that project. I did empty the trash from that project mostly and now have 60GB free on the eMac 2 hard drive. I will be trying to free another 20 GB still after this project is done. I freed 25 GB so far.

Speaking of hard drive space I am now able to make movies so may need even more hard drive space to store these movies.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

The DVD's of the USB drive are almost complete now and I will be deleting a lot of files shortly. I have made at least one copy of each of the 6 disks. I will now delete everything on this USB drive using Windows to do the deleting. I will then install a copy of my school work folder. I will also delete the burn folders on the eMac after I am done. This should restore about 35GB of free hard drive space to the eMac2.

A larger hard drive is installed now on the iBook

I chose to install the 40GB Thinkpad T30 drive on the iBook. I used this web site (http://www.ifixit.com/) to do the disassembly and assembly. I lost one screw at the half way point but found it and took the iBook apart again and put the screw back in. Now I can use the 60GB drive on an IBM Thinkpad project this summer. So this part of the iBook upgrade is completed. The other three steps include adding more RAM and I did buy a 512 PC133 laptop chip for the iBook. I also need to install the Mac OS X. I also am going to replace the top and track pad with a top and track pad in better condition. So this project is coming along. Then after all that is done comes software. I asked for a copy of Virtual PC for the Mac from the computer systems manager at work. Then I will install SAS. I will also install R on this machine. I will have to install a printer and Open Office too. So still more to do with this machine.

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Today's back up the 20GB Iomega USB drive

I am just backing up my USB portable drive to DVD. This might take a few hours. This is just to make certain all these files are backed up. I will make two copies and then delete the burn folders that I am using on my eMac2. Then I will delete everything from the USB drive.

I was able to import my WinNT email to my Intellistation copy of Outlook Express and today imported this email to Netscape 7.0 and have just copied this mail local folder from Netscape 7.0 on the Intellistation to the USB drive. I am going to use the USB drive to transfer this old WinNT email to the eMac and then delete everything from the USB drive.

I imported my Safari book marks as one html page to the iBook.
I am posting this from the iBook to test it out. It seems to work fine.
I was able to win a 60 GB hard drive for the iBook. I had to buy a Torx T8 screwdriver for taking apart the iBook. I also got a 128 MB RAM chip for the Compaq Presario 1210.

Saturday, April 15, 2006

I just made the last of my annual back up DVD's and am making a second copy of the movie I made yesterday.

I just made the last copies of three disks for my annual back ups. I now must send 5 DVD's off site to a family member to save them for me until next year. I also accessed one DVD today on another computer running Linux and the DVD is fine and I could open Open Office files on the Linux desktop no problem. I can also do some R code on Debian 3.1 no problem with Open Office. Thus when I get the 6 GB laptop hard drive I bought through ebay I will use it in the Compaq Presario 1210 and this time install Debian 3.1 on the Presario 1210. I also am just making a second copy of the movie I made yesterday. I am also thinking now of buying and setting up another USB external drive for storing music and video and have been window shopping on the web this morning to do this.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Updates

The email from the WinNT machine has been transfered to the copy of outlook express on the Intellistation. I will now transfer this to a netscape email folder and then transfer that to the eMac 2 mail application with an import. I am not sure how I will transfer the netscape mail folder yet.

The movie I downloaded from google video to use on my PSP does not work on the PSP. I need to research this more.

I have not yet backed up the Fedora core 3 user files.

The back up DVD's I made are all done now except the off site copies of the Thinkpad. Speaking of Thinkpads I will be buying a new one in July.

My R talk is not getting worked on yet. But I am starting to practice with SAS using the textbook data for my experimental design course. I am also reading some 1971 book on response surfaces this morning.

My planned book on computer self help for community development and organizing is getting another start. At least I have been encouraged to start to write it again.

iBook cleanup

The owner of the iBook I bought from, left all her files on this laptop. I did not look at them beyond seeing the names of some of the files.
  1. The first step in cleaning this iBook was to get the password from the previous owner,
  2. and her permission to delete all the files. I then deleted all the files.
  3. Then using her password I created a second admin account for myself and deleted her account.
  4. I could then set up networking.
  5. The next step was software updating. This computer had been set at Unix time zero in other words January 1st 1970. Also it had not been updated from 10.2 at all. I could not update automatically because of hard drive space limitations. So I had to delete Classic versions of outlook express, netscape, and explorer to get some more space. I also had to delete the deleted user account. I needed to reboot a number of times to get the true available free space after emptying the trash.
  6. I could still not install updates automatically and still this morning can not do this. So I downloaded the 10.2.8 update to the desktop and then used installer to install it.
  7. After this was done I restarted software update again and got about 6 security updates.
  8. I then continued to update software like Java, Safari, iCal, iTunes, and Quicktime.
I am now done and will have to do similar updating when I install a new hard drive and install a fresh copy of Jaguar on a larger new hard drive.

I have gotten the new top and track pad on ebay. The power adapter arrived yesterday which is why I could start working on this project today. I now need to find another laptop hard drive that is much larger than the little 3GB drive I have in there now. I will also have to do the replacement which means I need a Torx T8 screwdriver. Then I must upgrade the RAM but I am not sure if I want to spend 100$ on the 512 MB ram or spend less for a 256 MB ram chip.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Success with networking

I was able to get into a Mac running OSX over a network from a windows machine. Before this on my old eMac and my Thinkpad T30 I would have to get into the Thinkpad running WinXP by logging in from the Mac. This time I logged into the Mac on my WinNT box. I was trying to gather all the files off the WinNT box as I retire it. I had gotten all the files off it before using Zip disks and am still set up for zip disks off this WinNT machine. But this time I used the Mac public folder and drop box in this folder to transfer all the files and also the Outlook Express store folder over to the eMac. The Outlook Express folder was slightly too large for a zip disk so I have now solved this problem. Now I can burn this data to CD and store it away.

This started with a plan to delete the Fedora core 4 iso disks on my eMac desktop. First I am going to burn one copy of the four Fedora core 4 iso disks which I am almost finished doing. Then I will delete them. I thought I would upgrade the Fedora core on the IBM PC server and this time wipe out the WinNT. All I really need to do now is back up the old Fedora Core 3 files that I have made and then I can wipe out the Fedora core 3 too. Then I can sell or give away this old IBM PC server.

I also want to restore the email from the WinNT box into my eMac. To do this I will burn the WinNT back up data on the eMac. I will then import the outlook files to my Intellistation copy of Outlook Express. Then I can worry about getting the email to the Mac from there. I also plan to sell the Intellistation at the end of April after my SAS home work is done.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Annual DVD back ups.


I guess this could be called annual DVD backs ups. I made two back up DVD's in three copies of each for the Documents folder on my main computer the eMac2. I will also be making three back up DVD's of my old Thinkpad T30 files. These will also be copied three times each. Then I will be making some back up DVD's for my old eMac by copying folders over ethernet to the new eMac for burning.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

I found "secure empty trash" on my Mac does a better job of emptying the trash of my encrypted files. At least, I experimented and found out. I was developing a bit of repetitive stain injury emptying the trash when the process would stop at each encrypted file and ask for a click to continue. My arm is better now although the memory of the pain is still there cautioning my use of the mouse.

I am installing a movie on the PSP. I was told of this movie by Internet researcher Martin Dodge in an email to the AoIR discussing email list. The English wikipedia entry for this movie is here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Networks:_The_Heralds_of_Resource_Sharing The cite for the movie is King, Steven. Computer Networks - The Heralds of Resource Sharing (Boston, Mass.: MIT, 1972) Length: 30 min 22 sec, Apr 7, 2006 from google video (cited April 9th, 2006). It is on google video for watching or downloading to PC, Mac, iPod video, or PSP. Although the movie may be of significance it featues only male talking heads with women depicted as computer operators. So it is old school sexism at heart.

I am finally upgrading the parts for my iBook and may be able to restore the top and track pad to mint condition as well. It is a bit costly but I may use my old IBM Thinkpad T30 40 GB hard drive for the upgrade. Other than that the Mac OS 10.2 should cost about 30$ and a 256 MB PC 133 laptop RAM chip will also not cost more than 30$. Not sure what I should pay for the new top; but more than 20$ it will cost.

I am just about to burn some DVD's of the documents folder on my eMac. It may take 2 DVD's to back up everything except the old Thinkpad T30. The Thinkpad T30 will need 3 or 4 DVD's. So my total might be 6 DVD's.

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

I worked in the SAS software on a large school assignment in experimental design. I worked for about 8 hours straight then rested four hours and then another 2 hours. I got this final term work done on Tuesday. I now have a take home exam in this experimental design course. The exam will last 3 days and I can use any book or other reference but I can not use other people to help me.

Speaking of statistics I am also writing a talk on R the open source statistical software/language. I need to do some more work writing this talk and start testing some code and of course writing some code. I will give the talk at the Ottawa Carleton Linux user group meeting in May if I can get it done.

The iBook blueberry 300 Mhz specs

Well the iBook I got did not come with a functioning power adapter so I have had to buy one of those for it. I did get it working at the Mac Group store wth their power adapter and it is a 300 MHz, 96 MB RAM and 3 GB hard drive. The Mac Group tell me it is very difficult, maybe an hour and half work to replace the hard drive. The memory can be placed in and upgraded with no real problem. So the question is how much money do I want to spend on this beast? So far I have had to cut down my plans for a really large hard drive like 80GB. I am probably limited to 20GB. In terms of RAM I can put in as large as 512 MB but this costs about 100$ almost half of the price of the laptop itself. Whereas a more modest 256 MB chips is only about 30$. So far I have spent about 45$ buying the powr adapter. I can stop here with just the power adapter for now. May be buy the 256 MB RAM. But I might also buy a replacement top and trackpad as the iBook is rather scratched up. But a new hard drive is not an option right now.