Crystal Computing Logbook

Sold my Dell Vostro 1015.

2011-11-14T03:16:00.002-05:00

I sold my Vostro 1015 running Ubuntu 11.10 to a friend who gave it to her daughter. I really only needed to back up sent e-mail that had been sent from this laptop. I did also back up documents I had made on the machine. This machine was my main laptop for a non-profit I was involved in that refurbishes computers and installs Ubuntu on the refurbished machines.

End of month back ups starting.

2011-09-30T23:57:00.001-04:00

I should probably make more DVD backups soon.

I backed up my Dell Studio.

2011-08-31T05:07:00.001-04:00

I backed up my Dell Studio to network drive and then a second copy of the back up was made to an external firewire drive.

Both my Vostro 1510 and my Vostro V130n had their Linux software updated this week.

2011-08-19T05:23:00.003-04:00

These two Vostro's are my two Linux only machines. "Look ma, no windows." I updated them both this week with security updates and newer versions of software. The Vostro V130n is dual boot Edubuntu and Kubuntu. The Vostro 1510 is the latest Kubuntu.

I was successful installing SAS on Edubuntu 11.04

2011-07-30T10:31:00.001-04:00

I got a hold of some instructions from a blog and got the SAS installed on Linux. A support worker at work found the instructions for me.

I am trying to install SAS on Linux this weekend.

2011-07-23T04:04:00.001-04:00

I have some help files and will try to install SAS 9.2 on Linux this weekend.

I updated my computers and various operating systems

2011-06-29T05:12:00.004-04:00

My Linux operating systems are failing. I can no longer access the Debian 6 on Remembrance or update the Transmission 4.0 fully on Remembrance. The Debian 6 seems to have an X window problem and has become a print server and I can not start tasksel on it or use sudo. The transmission is having problems with the Adobe Flash update. I did update just now, Debian 4 on Remembrance and also the Win XP 64 bit. I am attempting to rescue the Kubuntu on the Alienware M11X this morning. I lost it soon after upgrading to 11.04 Kubuntu. I have two Dell Vostro laptops which came from Dell with Linux already installed and these have been updated to Kubuntu 11.04 and one also boots to Edubuntu 11.04 now. These are both working fine still. And I receive e-mail on one and send e-mail using KMail. On the other newer one a Vostro V130n I use Evolution yet have not configured the sending of e-mail. I no longer really use Macs in any regular way. I still depend on my e-Mac to be my e-mail storage machine and turn it on every week or two to download new e-mail. All my other machines leave the e-mail on the server. I think the e-mail service I have which is managed in the back end by hotmail actually keeps a few months or more of the e-mail on the server anyways.

My home computer ownership history.

2011-05-21T22:41:00.005-04:00

I used to use an Apple Performa 580CD computer in 1995 to 1998 as my main home computer. This was my first computer with a mouse and colour screen. I then got a hand me down Hewlet Packard 166 Mhz Pentium I computer running Windows 95. This began my Outlook Express e-mail client use phase. This computer was the only computer I did not save the email from. Then I purchased with my school's help an IBM Aptiva running Windows 98 in late 1999. With this computer I got Broadband Internet in my home for the first time. Then a year or two later again with help from others I got a Duron 850 Mhz clone PC running Windows 98. Some of the e-mail from this computer is still locked up on a hard drive I can not access. The case of this computer is still being used for Remembrance my present quad boot PC. I then went back to Mac's and got an early model eMac and that was my main machine for years. I also got an IBM Thinkpad laptop refurbished with Windows XP and that got me through most of my last BA. I then bought a last model eMac that I still have. The IBM laptop screen broke and I got all the data off it. For awhile in those days I used an IBM rack mount server for daily home used with a Windows NT 3 desktop. It also booted into Red Hat and then later when Red Hat started to cost money Red Hat's free Fedora Linux. I then in 2006 got a first model Macbook which I still have. I used an IBM Thinkcentre with XP for a while for a windows machine and I then built Remembrance a 64 bit Windows XP machine in 2008. I continued to use the Macbook and eMac. The eMac and Macbook became my regular machines for home use and I only used the Windows really for Eve Online ( a game) and some Windows based school related programming. I then started to buy Dell computers in 2009. This then began my more extensive use of Linux phase. I also used an Inspiron laptop running Vista for one year then got an Alienware M11X running Windows 7 and then this Dell Studio also Windows 7 and when I got the Studio laptop I retired the Macbook. I also use a Vostro running the latest Kubuntu. Also all my PC's have the ability to boot into Debian Linux including Debian 4 and 6.

Backing up the Dell Studio for a monthly back up.

2011-04-24T15:58:00.002-04:00

I have backed up the Dell Studio Desktop and Documents folder to one network hard drive and am now copying that backup to a second network drive. I will next copy that backup to the Iomega 4 TB drive.

I set up my LinkSys 5 port swtich in the living room.

2011-04-01T15:07:00.002-04:00

My router/modem is in the office in my apartament. I run an ethernet cable through the walls to the living room. In the office this cable connects to a 16 port switch. Recently I have been using laptops in the living room which all have wireless connections to the router/modem. Instead of wireless which causes some slow YouTube videos I have started to use the cable to the living room. To split this cable out I connected my 5 port LinkSys Ethernet switch last night. The 5 port switch takes the cable signal and splits it out in the living room.

I got a new 4 TB hard drive with RAID.

2011-03-07T09:27:00.002-05:00

I have a new Iomega hard drive designed for the G5 Mac and nearly went out and bought a G5 Mac used. I formatted the hard drive into 6 partitions of a little less than 500 GB each. It really only has about 2 TB space because of the RAID. I have backed up my eMac and my Macbook so far using the firewire connection. That's why I bought this particular model because it has a firewire interface. I am also copying data off of my network drive to this new hard drive. The drive can not be seen by my windows computers even though I reformated it to DOS readable partitions.

More RAM memory purchased for laptops.

2011-02-20T03:59:00.002-05:00

I purchased 4 GB of RAM memory for the Alienware M11X computer. I also upgraded the Vostro computer to 4 GB of RAM memory.

Computer group I am volunteering with doing some good.

2011-01-26T00:50:00.001-05:00

We are starting to write some very good stories of getting low income families computers running Ubuntu. We have many busy "Ubuntu installing" volunteers developed.

I updated the Indamixx on the Dell Studio. I can not get the sound system working on it though!

2011-01-23T08:26:00.002-05:00

I spent about half an hour trying to get the sound system to come through the M-Audio Pre USB sound interface and into some headphones. This is on the Indamixx side of this Dell Studio laptop. Oh well, at least I put in some more time with Indamixx and the Trinity OS. I really should read the manuals for this OS and its softwares.

The Kubuntu Vostro 15 is now updated. More RAM needed perhaps for this machine.

2011-01-23T05:11:00.002-05:00

I updated the Vostro 15.

It was very sluggish. I may need to invest in more RAM for this machine. It has 1 GB now and can go up to 4 GB. A 2 GB RAM chip costs about 30$ to 75$ so the upgrade could be anywhere from 30$ to 150$ depending on where I buy the RAM and how much I upgrade the RAM amount.

Remembrance is updated.

2011-01-16T01:23:00.001-05:00

I have now updated the XP, the Indimixx and the Debian 4 on the home built PC I call Remembrance.

The back ups seem to be going fine.

2011-01-01T23:03:00.002-05:00

Both Remembrance and the Dell Studio have had their Desktop and Documents folders copied to a network drive. The eMac has downloaded the past month's e-mail after copies were downloaded to the Macbook and the Kubuntu Vostro. Now this e-mail is being backed up to the network drive. For the above, I think I will make second copies on the other network drive.

Time to do year end back ups.

2010-12-31T20:13:00.002-05:00

Mostly, I have used this Dell Studio this year, so this is what I will concentrate on backing up now, for year end back ups. The Macbook and eMac are already backed up. That leaves the Kubuntu Dell Vostro and the Alienware M11X to back up as well.

Dell replaced the keyboard on the Dell Studio laptop as I asked them to do.

2010-12-31T20:11:00.001-05:00

Dell did not mind that my computer is dual boot linux/windows 7. They simply replaced the keyboard as I asked them too.

Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 was purchased for the Remembrance computer.

2010-12-31T20:09:00.001-05:00

I just installed Kaspersky Internet Security 2011 on my home build PC. The license for Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 had expired.

Replacing the Dell Studio keyboard.

2010-11-21T11:17:00.002-05:00

I am sending my Dell Studio laptop to Dell to have the keyboard replaced. It is still under warranty so this will not cost me money. To prepare, I am first backing up all my files to my network drive. Then I will create a dummy account for the technicans to log into at Dell.

I thinking of buying a new hard drive for Remembrance the home built PC

2010-11-15T04:12:00.001-05:00

I am considering buying a 1 terebyte drive for my home built PC for backups.

I backed up the Dell Studio laptop.

2010-10-31T10:02:00.001-04:00

I backed up the My Documents and Desktop folders on my Dell Studio Laptop that is the Windows 7 side.

Studying PERL again.

2010-10-27T19:29:00.001-04:00

I have yet to get used to programming with PERL. Yet it offers me a lot of efficencies in the work I do.

Updating cycle today.

2010-09-19T12:47:00.002-04:00

While my day to day computers update themselves, some of my machines are off most of the time, so I turn them on from time to time and update the operating systems. I may try to update my Trinity Indimixx OS today on Remembrance the low energy use desktop PC I built from parts in fall 2008.

HP6840 printer works well with Kubuntu 10.04 Linux

2010-09-04T21:59:00.002-04:00

I was able to get the HP 6840 printer working fine with my Kubuntu laptop. I installed a few extra HP softwares from the regular software update. It printed just fine. I did this test for Computers for Communities (C4C) ( Ottawa Chapter). the printer was donated to C4C.

Office 2010 studies from For Dummies books.

2010-09-03T03:32:00.004-04:00

There is too much to know to claim to be a smart computer programmer, computer scientist or computer user. That's an explanation for why I accept the For Dummies series of books as helpful. I am studying from these books Office 2010, Perl and UML2. I admit I got furthest with the Perl book so far, and with the ULM2 book I have gotten nowhere. I did though start to read this past week Office 2010 For Dummies and also Excel 2010 For Dummies. I will be paid to use these applications at work in the future, so I study these to improve my work skills and efficiency. These are though not my main knowledge sphere, my main knowledge sphere is as a procedural programmer at present in the SAS language.

I gave away the Dell Mini 9 to a young person.

2010-08-31T08:32:00.003-04:00

I gave away the Dell Mini 9 with Kubuntu installed. I also installed many games on this netbook. I had some trouble with the Network Manager application. It got turned off and I could not restart it. This young person will probably have no support to keep this netbook updated.

It is difficult to keep all my computers up to date.

2010-08-23T02:46:00.002-04:00

I probably have too many computers now. I did repair the Macbook top, keyboard and track pad with a used UK version of these. It works but I have lost the front power light and wake up sound. I had promised to give this laptop away and can now do this once everything is backed up. I had planned to save up for a Macbook Pro but now prefer Linux computers. I have changed the operating system on my newish Vostro 1015 laptop to Kubuntu from Ubuntu and have the wireless working and have it working with my new Epson all-in-one printer, thanks to the useful information on the Ubuntu forums about this Epson 610 printer. I keep my XP 64 bit desktop updated. I keep the Debian updated on it and am in the process of upgrading it to Debian 5. I need to update the Trinity OS on it and have some instructions on how to update that to the Ubuntu base 10.4 OS for Trinity. I am considering giving away my netbook to a young girl in the family. I will install Kubuntu first on the netbook and wipe out the other OS on it, so I should back it up today. I will need to buy the parents in the family a book to help them maintain the netbook. Besides my Vostro 1015 laptop, I also am using a new Dell Studio 17 inch laptop running Windows 7. I also have my sub laptop, an Alienware M11X which is fully paid for now. It runs Windows 7 and Debian 5.

I bought an Epson Workforce 610 all-in-one printer

2010-08-21T11:41:00.001-04:00

I just purchased a new all-in-one printer. Here is the link to the downloads page: Epson Workforce 610 all-in-one printer

Backing up Macbook for non use.

2010-07-04T14:07:00.003-04:00

The first Macbook I have owned is four years old and is an original model bought about 2 weeks after the Macbook model first went on sale in June 2006. The "N" key is now not useable. I tried to fix this by buying a replacement "N" key but bought the wrong model's key. I then tried to fix this by buying a replacement keyboard only to find out after taking the Macbook apart that the keyboard is fused with the top of the laptop and instead I needed to buy a replacement top including keyboard. This would be about 60$ plus shipping on ebay and I can not afford it right now.

This means I will not use the Macbook until the top can be replaced. So I am backing it up and preparing to move my work to my new Dell Studio laptop. I am archiving Mac Mail right now and have also copied the Desktop folder and am starting to copy the Mail and Mail Download folders which are in the User's Library folder. The archive though will produce mbox folders which can be imported into Linux e-mail clients/softwares. I am also copying the Documents folder. If I have time I will copy the whole Library folder to backup.

The first back up I am doing is to my Linksys network drive which is very slow. As I do this I then copy the files from the Linksys drive to my Dell Studio, so I will have access to all my Macbook documents. After this I will back everything up to a portable USB drive.

I will also have to psychologically get out of the habit of using the Macbook..

The Dell Vostro with Ubuntu won't play my Stargate SG1 DVD's

2010-06-13T20:32:00.002-04:00

The Movie Player application in Ubuntu won't play my Stargate SG1 disk. I had to watch it with Windows Media Player on the Dell Studio 17.

My computers are working fine.

2010-06-13T10:59:00.002-04:00

All my computers are working fine. The Macbook and eMac have none functioning disk burners so I need to burn disks on the Remembrance desktop or the Dell Studio laptop.

I reinstalled Ubuntu 10.04 on the Vostro and it is working fine now.

2010-06-03T02:49:00.001-04:00

I was able in under 24 hours to download a copy of Ubuntu 10.04, burn it to disk and last night reinstall the OS on the Vostro.

The Dell Vostro 15 now won't boot into the desktop only a terminal window.

2010-06-02T20:54:00.003-04:00

It seems I have failed to upgrade to Ubuntu 10.04. A Dell Linux support technician recommended reinstalling from a 10.04 disk which I am making now.

Looking for more RAM for my new Vostro 15 with Ubuntu Linux

2010-05-31T04:20:00.004-04:00

I will start looking for more RAM for this Vostro 15 inch laptop. I spent the first day with this laptop upgrading the OS to Ubuntu 10.04. It came new from Dell with Ubuntu 8.04 for 349$. I messed up the Evolution e-mail by trying to load a back up Evolution file without uncompressing the file first. At least the wireless is working and that could have been a big headache. I did get Thunderbird e-mail software working yesterday. Ideally I would like to get Evolution working again or e-macs. This laptop takes PC2 DDR2 800 SODIMM RAM and has 1 GB RAM now. I will need to access the RAM and most probably want two 2 GB RAM sticks to bring this laptop up to its 4 GB maximum.

Book review being worked on for local SAS user group.

2010-05-21T03:51:00.002-04:00

I am working on a book review for a local SAS user group. I will give the presentation June 9 in the morning at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. The review covers the book ODS: the Basics by Lauren E. Haworth. So far the book has proved useful to me at work.

I have ordered a second monitor.

2010-05-08T19:38:00.001-04:00

I was able to borrow money to order a second monitor. Again I bought as G series Green monitor from Dell and again on sale.

Success with Evolution e-mail client and Sympatico Internet Service

2010-05-06T01:38:00.007-04:00

I used SSL encryption for receiving e-mail and "password" as the encryption type. For sending e-mail I used TLS encryption and "login" as the authentication type. It works. Therefore good bye 4 year old Macbook for e-mail. I actually used the "check for supported types" button and the other choices in both cases were crossed out after the check. I think, if you start with the above choices and use the "check for supported types" button you will then get "the check for supported types" button to work. I think, if you have different types selected, the "check for supported types" button will not work.

the challenge to get Thunderbird e-mail software working with Sympatico Internet.

2010-05-06T00:02:00.001-04:00

I want to get Thuderbird working with my ISP who won't support me setting it up.

I did get the Dell Studio 17 inch wide screen laptop.

2010-05-02T21:22:00.002-04:00

This new laptop is now running Debian 5 on one of its two hard drives. I am typing this in Iceweasel the Debian version of Firefox. I have used the Mix Tab, and Tree Tab Style add ons for Firefox as I do these days. I am also trying out History Tab another Firefox add on. I have just spent about two hours blogging and social networking with Iceweasel and had no issues. Next, I have to test an e-mail software. Then I can prepare to give away my old Macbook.

The laptop has a 17 inch widescreen LED screen. It has an Intel i7 processor. The laptop has two 320 GB hard drives allowing a clean install of Debian 5 on its own drive. So far I have not been able to get Grub working in either Ubuntu or Kubuntu on either my Dell Alienware M11X or this Dell Studio. It may be that both are running Windows 7. Debian seems to install and allow dual booting with no problem.

I decided not to buy the Dell Studio 17 laptop.

2010-04-11T09:46:00.001-04:00

I already have a fair amount of debit with Dell so decided not to buy on credit the Dell Studio 17 laptop.

I may be buying a Dell 17" Studio laptop.

2010-04-04T12:03:00.002-04:00

I am waiting for the loan approval for the purchase of a Dell Studio laptop with 17 inch screen. I will install Kubuntu on this laptop and it may become my main machine.

I installed Kubuntu 9.10 on my Dell Mini 9.

2010-04-03T09:49:00.002-04:00

I used a software from sourceforge recommended by Ubuntu to create a bootable USB drive with the downloaded Kubuntu iso operating system disk. I now have three operating systems each using just under 20 GB installed on my Dell Mini 9 netbook.

The "N" key on my Macbook keyboard cracked.

2010-03-31T23:18:00.001-04:00

The "N" key on my 3.75 year old Macbook cracked a few days ago. Today I ordered a replacement key from an ebay seller.

Today I am volunteering in computer refurbishing.

2010-03-21T09:27:00.002-04:00

I am helping with getting a computer refurbishing non profit off the ground. We have been going for a little more than a year now. We have a workshop now and a number of committed and knowledgeable volunteers. We install Edubuntu on older computers we receive as donations and then in turn donate these computers to community groups.

The next Dell puchase is a Green 22 inch monitor.

2010-03-04T22:45:00.004-05:00

I could not fit my LG 19 inch wide screen monitor on the dual arm monitor mount because the mounting holes on the LG are 35 mm X 75 mm. So I bought a new monitor from Dell on credit. Credit seems to be easy with Dell and I have probably now over extended myself with Dell Financing. At first they would not approve credit on a new monitor. I was trying to buy two so they would both be on the dual mount arm and by buying two the purchase total price would be high enough for a loan rather than revolving credit and that would mean a more favorable interest rate on the credit. I seem to have been denied that more favorable rate now and am about 3,000 dollars in debit to Dell Financing on these 19% loans. Instead, in the end, they approved a single monitor purchase at 30% interest. So far, as of today before the monitor has been charged I have fully paid off this 30% interest account. I have fully paid for an e-book I got because it was easy credit and a Linux based OS. Then I got with this second laptop tray for the dual arm mount and have now fully paid that off too. Now I must pay off this new monitor soon. The new M11X laptop is on a 6 months no interest loan plan at 19% interest and I have a plan in place to save up the money to fully pay it off in four months. Then if both of these repayment plans work and nothing new is purchased I will owe less than 2000$ at the 19% interest rate. I will save close to 500$ by paying the loan off for the laptop. The new monitor is here http://accessories.dell.com/sna/products/Displays/productdetail.aspx?c=ca&l=en&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1&sku=320-7958

I have the new laptop working now with lots of software.

2010-03-03T04:15:00.003-05:00

I installed Office XP, Office 2007 student version for productivity suites and have used these already for school related work. For games I installed Eve Online, Eve Monitor, and Second Life and updated World of WarCraft which I do not actually play yet. For Internet software I installed Firefox 3. For statistical work I installed SAS, SAS Enterprise Guide, and JMP.

I have now fully prepared the laptop and my friend has it and is happy with it.

2010-02-28T16:46:00.001-05:00

I took me about 12 hours to fully reinstall the Vista operating system and delete the windows.old folder. Much of this time was taken up installing drivers too.

I am installing drivers for the Dell Inspiron after installing Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit.

2010-02-27T09:40:00.004-05:00

It is taking a while to install all these drivers. I have taken a break now to make sure I delete the windows.old folder. I had software licenses on this Inspiron I can not share so must make sure everything is gone. I could have wiped the whole drive but decided not to do that. So now I have many drivers and the Dell system software installed. Before I continue to install more Dell drivers and software I am deleting about 25 GB of data in the windows.old folder.

I have left Yahoo domains for almost all my domains now.

2010-02-27T09:17:00.003-05:00

I have one domain left with Yahoo and that is because the hosting for that site is with Yahoo. They raised their prices and closed Geocities and I know they have to make money but both of those moves have cost me time and money. I moved to a Canadian domain name register now. It is an expensive time of year for me as many domains become due now for renewal. I also have no web mastering income this past year nor any planned for 2010.

I have backed up all the user files on the Inspiron and am now restoring windows.

2010-02-27T05:41:00.002-05:00

I am now reinstalling Windows Vista on the Dell 1545 Inspiron, a friend is buying it from me and I am setting it up for him. I have a new Alienware M11X for a windows laptop.

I am typing this on my Macbook while it is suspended above the coffee table on a dual monitor mount.

2010-02-18T22:15:00.003-05:00

This seems to work well for typing and allowing me to actually see the keyboard as I type. The laptop is being suspended on a laptop tray while I type this. The screen is now eye level although my hands are having to reach up a little bit. I will try this for awhile. I am using a Ergotron dual mount arm to do this.

The one thing is my LG W1952TQ monitor will not mount on the vesa mount. So I may have to find another monitor for this mount arm. I may try to trade this monitor with someone for a compatible monitor.

Back ups and the back up cycle ad hoc deletion of back up folders for the Mac computers.

2010-02-14T11:18:00.005-05:00

I have been deleting old Macintosh documents, mail and desktop folders from the network drive. This deletion is ad hoc merely deleting folders with dates between the earliest back ups and the oldest back ups. This is being applied to both the Macbook 1 and eMac 2 back up folders. I am backing up both of these computers about once a month to the network drive. I also use two USB external drives and one external firewire drive to make the same back ups at times, in case the network drive fails. Nothing is off site yet, so I am really not backed up.

Updating Fink and Fink Commander on my Macbook.

2010-02-14T08:44:00.004-05:00

I have to use the Otter/Mace9 automated theorem prover for some school work in knowledge representation. I have it running on my Ubuntu Dell Mini 9 netbook already. Since I am typing up my school work in LaTeX on my Macbook, I want to run Otter/Mace9 on my Macbook. I usually install GNU software like Otter/Mace9 with Fink. So I am having to update Fink and Fink Commander.

Now after writing this, I searched Fink and could not find Otter in Fink. I will try to install it in a Macintosh package from the Otter/Mace9 web site. For now I have Prover on the Macbook which is a newer version of Otter/Mace9. I would like to use the old version still.

May be the newer version Prover will help me get started with Otter because so far I have not had success with the resolution function in Otter on the netbook. And the resolution function and then refutation is the point of this Otter software

I am anticipating the M11X gaming laptop now.

2010-02-14T04:34:00.002-05:00

The shipping date for the M11X is set for March 12th. I am anticipating that I may receive it some time this coming week.

I have a buyer for the Inspiron 1545 now and the Alienware M11X has been ordered.

2010-02-09T04:50:00.002-05:00

I have found a buyer for the Inspiron 1545 just before I signed the agreement to borrow the money from Dell Financial Services to pay for the Alienware M11X. The M11X does not have the new Intel i processors and weights more than a comparable Asus laptop with a different graphic card. The M11X weights less than 4.5 pounds. This is related to consumer satisfaction and depression. So I will realize this relation and carry on loving and liking this new laptop. I hope to pay off the loan with my tax return.

The sales preparation process for selling the Dell Inspiron 1545 used to a new owner.

2010-02-07T12:45:00.004-05:00

The first step I figured was to find all the disks that came with this Dell Inspiron 1545 15 inch wide screen laptop.: I did find those. I need to have the restore disk so I can reinstall the OS so the new onwer can have a clean OS and start fresh. I may also look into some way of securely erasing the drive without crapping up the format so the restore disk will still work. So step one is good to go.
The step two is to back up all my user files on both the Windows side and the Debian side.: This may be difficult to make sure I have all the data in all the folders such as software user data folders. If I am going to get a new Windows 7 computer there may be some data and application transfer techniques these days to simply transfer the data from the Vista 64 bit on the Inspiron to the Windows 7 Home Premium on the new Alienware M11X. For now I am backing up files to a small external USB drive with 91 GB free space. This is one of the few USB drives I have that can be seen by Windows and Linux and Macs. I will also back up to my Linksys network drivebay. So step two is in progress.

Considering buying a Dell Alienware gaming laptop and selling the Dell Inspiron laptop.

2010-02-06T21:48:00.005-05:00

Last winter my Internet provider offered me a discount on a netbook from Dell. Therein I discovered Dell computers and the Dell finance easy credit. I also discovered that the netbooks were available with Linux. I bought a netbook with Ubuntu 8 and that has since been upgraded by myself to Ubuntu 9 netbook remix and I have also installed now the Transmission OS from the Trinity Audio Group also known as Indamixx OS. This is a specialized Linux based music OS.

I then ordered an Inspiron 15 inch wide screen laptop from Dell. Then later in the summer I ordered a Dell Mini projector. I am now considering selling the mini projector and a screen I had bought on ebay. I am also now considering selling the Inspiron laptop and getting an 11 inch Alienware M11X gaming laptop.

It looks like I will be able to sell these 160 GB hard drives and only have a small loss.

2010-01-10T04:11:00.004-05:00

It looks like I can get my money back for these two 160 GB hard drives I bought and get most of my money back from the sale. I will find out in about 10 hours if this is possible. I placed an add on a local web classifieds to do this sale.

I was still unsuccessful at installing harddrives in the Rackable Systems server.

2010-01-09T05:10:00.002-05:00

I tried with two used IDE 160 GB drives and was still unsuccessful at installing hard drives in this server. I will stop buying things now for his project. I will perhaps sell off the harddrives.

I am fixing up the Rackable Systems server and then going to sell it, if someone will buy it.

2009-12-23T02:23:00.002-05:00

I have learned some of the BIOS settings for the Rackable Systems server now. The hard drives I have tried to use in it are former systems drives, so I can not get the BIOS to see them. I need to reformat them but have so far not found a way to do that. I might try with a Mac computer to do it. I have not been able to do the formatting with a Windows or a Linux PC. I did buy two used 160GB hard drives on eBay. I will put these drives in and then test an install but not install then try to sell this server for the cost I paid about 300$ now.

I have Google Wave as of today.

2009-11-27T03:06:00.002-05:00

I have Google Wave as of today. Google Wave is another word of mouth distributed Google service. In other words, one user invites other users they know. Google Wave profiles imitate Facebook. The profiles are public to all of Google Wave. I am not sure I will fill in my profile. I often set rules in technology for myself and then later break them though.

I have been playing Eve Online for almost two years now.

2009-11-23T02:15:00.002-05:00

I have been playing Eve Online for almost two years now. It occupies a lot of my time at home on the weekends and weeknights and over night. I play this game almost well enough now to play for free. I opened a second account after a little more than 1 year. I have kept a fan fiction blog of my main avatar's adventures. I have learned that, yes, other players cooperate in playing this game. I have also been learning to use Excel during this time period and this game has given me exercises to practice my spreadsheet work. Also I have developed an "in game" business plan that has worked. All in all, I have had some social time chatting with other players from the USA, Australia and Europe. I have even chatted in French a little.

I did try to buy an account on World of Warcraft but this did not work out and I did not yet try that game. I also considered buying a game console. I did not consider myself a computer gamer in the 1990's. In the 1980's almost all my computing was gaming computing because the Commadore computers I had seemed limited to that given my finances. I did complete some school exercises in GIS programming and Fortran 77 programming in the 1980's and these were not gaming. In the 1970's I also played some games. In the 1970's I worked in programming with Fortran IV and data entry on punched cards and even played with the cards making little hang gliders from the cards. I also did some other non-work exploring and gaming and mostly school programming on BASIC in mini computers with terminal access. I was able to design computer games and computer graphics in the 1970's and 1980's. So my connection with gaming now continues.

I actually did end up getting my Palm schedule into Outlook 2007 using Google Calendar Sync.

2009-11-06T00:07:00.003-05:00

Google Calendar and its sync software tool seems to have helped my Microsoft Outlook problem but won't help my Microsoft Entourage problem. Entourage can still not import anything from other programs. I think Microsoft make some very closed products. But that said, I now do have my Palm schedule in Outlook 2007. I learned that after a court case (I still believe it was this court case that popped the Internet bubble), other companies such as SAS have had access to adding things onto Microsoft office. So back to Palms... now I will see if I can get my Palm schedule into Evolution on the Linux side.

I have done a fair amount of work too with one of my more action oriented volunteer groups in Palm contacts as well. I have recorded scheduling details and micro-historical records along with contact information for other volunteers. I really may not need this info and the perfectionism I might express to access this info again from saved back ups might not be healthy. I also probably do not need to update this type of info to make up for not recording it for a year or two now. I will just have to live with the fact, that when I recorded this info it was useful and that I learned by it back then and may not need it now. I could start to record it again in some other way. I may though not need this part of my life and those records to have consistency. My time is better spent on something more current and perhaps a new system for recording the same details. In fact, now that I think about it the organization does have a recording system that I use with doc files.

I have started to use both Outlook 2007 and Evolution e-mail on my Dell Inspiron but I do not send e-mail from the Dell yet.

2009-10-18T03:41:00.004-04:00

I was able to import e-mail on the Dell Inspiron using the Linux side of the computer and Evolution e-mail. I have not sent e-mail from Evolution and want to make sure I can take any evolution e-mail and transfer it back to the Mac.

I turned on Outlook 2007 and configured it to download e-mail but leave a copy on the server as I also do with my Macbook. It may be impossible to export e-mail from Outlook so I have not used it to send any e-mail or really create anything yet.

I am using Google Calendar successfully with my old Palm schedule and have also tried to synchronize the Google Calendar with Outlook 2007. This has not brought the Palm calendar into Outlook which is one goal I have for my calendar.

Again I feel slightly burned by an ebay deal but it is probably alright.

2009-09-10T21:42:00.002-04:00

I thought I was buying PC 5300 RAM from an ebay seller but it turned out to be PC5400 which is I am gathering from ebay information some kind of Vista upgrade version of PC5300. I was trying to avoid PC 5400 in this purchase.

Saving up for OCZ netbook.

2009-09-02T19:12:00.002-04:00

Rather than force money from a stone to buy the netbook immediately, I am going to save money for at least 3 months, if not 6 months or something in between. I may be able to manage 60$ to 120$ a month in savings. I have 60$ saved now. I need to save up 360$ for the cost of the netbook and tax.

I did buy some OCZ RAM memory for this netbook so far. This cost about 50$ on ebay for a new 2 GB stick of PC 53000 677 RAM. This is the correct RAM for this netbook.

I am looking at the OCZ DIY netbook.

2009-08-29T15:10:00.002-04:00

Here are the specs on this netbook http://www.ocztechnology.com/products/diy_notebooks/ocz_neutrino_10-diy_netbook. I have an 80 GB hard drive I could use with it from my Macbook. This 80 GB hard drive was the original hard drive in the Macbook. The drive was replaced late last fall and the drive was been just sitting here not being used, in case of being needed for restore. The Macbook is working fine now, so I think this old drive can be used for something else now like as a netbook hard drive.

I have transfered all the 1997 and 1996 e-mail to my netbook.

2009-08-23T01:29:00.002-04:00

I have successfully transferred all the e-mail from my Mac Perform 580CD from 1996 and 1997 to my netbook. I did not really read any of this old email at the moment. I only have 1998 e-mail to still transfer. The e-mail from 1998 to 2000 is I think lost on a Windows 95 PC I never backed up.

I can now import all my e-mail to my netbook.

2009-08-16T12:35:00.002-04:00

I am organizing my e-mail now in Evolution on the Netbook. I have imported all the 1996 e-mail which is the oldest email I have electronic copies of. I will also try to import this e-mail into Pine and access it with Emacs. I am trying to move towards more free software use.

Evolution can import the mail if it is imported as a single mbox file.

2009-08-13T21:04:00.002-04:00

Apparently Evolution can not import the Mac Mail's folders. Oh now I have it. Rather than import from other programs or folders you use import a single file and chose an mbox file. It seems to work now.

My portable USB drive got zapped by the netbook.

2009-08-13T20:31:00.002-04:00

I seem to have lost about 80 GB of files and another 40 GB are no longer easily accessed on the USB portable drive. I was just thinking that because the drive is a LaCie it is high quality. I was fooled. What did I do? I accepted that I probably did not need the files on the drive and it is only one failed drive so there are back ups if it somewhere else. I then did the archiving again and am now copying the archived email to the netbook. Live and learn eh?

Further progress on transfering my e-mail storage to another computer.

2009-08-13T17:04:00.002-04:00

I of course, searched Google for solutions to moving my e-mail from the eMac and Mac Mail to my Dell Mini 9 Ubuntu netbook and Evolution Mail. I found a web page helpful, once I sorted out that it is actually only about Mac Mail under Max OS 10.5. Here is the web page: http://www.cognitivecombine.com/2008/11/importing-emails-from-mac-mail-into-evolution/. A fellow gamer playing Eve Online helped me sort that out. Mac Mail on Max OS 10.4 does not have an archiving option that the web page mentioned.

The present route I am going now is to use the stored mail on the USB drive and import it into Mac Mail on the Macbook which is running Mac OS 10.5. This is now done. The next step which is now in progress is to archive this newly imported mail box as an mbox file. Then I will need to move this file to the USB drive and copy it to the netbook home folder in a folder named Mail. Then Evolution may be able to import it.

I have a plan now to move my email to other email softwares and I am just about finished step 1: copying the email from the eMac2 to a portable drive.

2009-08-12T03:33:00.002-04:00

I have just about finished copying all the email I have stored that is all the email on the eMac2 to a portable USB drive. This drive can be accessed by Macs, Windows and Linux computers unlike the Mac backup drives which are only accessible on Macs. This has to do with the way the hard drives are formatted. So now it should be possible to import this mail to Evolution on the Netbook. Or at least move in this direction.

Backing up strategy and present progress.

2009-08-10T06:01:00.002-04:00

I need a better back up strategy. I have not yet sent disks off site and should just take action on this and mail the boxes I have to family. I also need to start to fully back up the eMac 2 as it is almost 4 years old now. It is starting to fall apart software wise and as well the Combo drive is of unknown functionality. On the eMac are certain older computer files but these have been backed up to USB drives and also to DVD. I need to search out in my apartment all the DVD's and make sure are they are all labeled. This is the next step. Then I will put these in the boxes and mail them. I will set a date of September 3rd to have this all done.

At the moment I am backing up my Macbook email. I am also not done backing up the Documents folder on the Macbook from August 2, 2009.

I whipped the Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 LTS the was the original OS on the Dell Mini 9 and just completed a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook remix!

2009-08-08T11:33:00.002-04:00

After downloading Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook remix from Ubuntu I read the instructions for installing it. Running off the command line I was able to check the MD5SUM code for the download and it was good. I followed the instructions carefully on the Ubuntu install page and used a third party web site to install usb-imagewriter and wrote the downloaded USB img to a 1 GB USB disk ( I did of course back up the previous data on the USB disk and then reformatted it to MS-DOS using Disk Utility on my Macbook).

The weird frustrating fun began. I check the help manual for Ubuntu installation and found out that what could be done is an incremental upgrade from Hardy 8.04 to another higher version than another higher version and so forth until I got to the current version. But the Dell Netbook software update was so locked down this was not possible. I wasted about an hour trying to change the software repositories and nothing worked. The Dell software update had been failing to update with security patches for about one month now. So instead after becoming frustrated I went with the original plan and did a fresh install of the latest Ubuntu 9.04 and that is installed now with my Freenet email set. I have not had NCF email for years. I have simply been forwarding mail to my sympatico account. So I am have reclaimed my NCF email account. The software update on the Dell Mini 9 is just doing its first get caught up update now on the coffee table beside this Macbook, I am writing this on. The net install also automatically choose to use Dell drivers, so I may be no worse for wear and even better with a fresh install and working software update now. Ubuntu 9.04 is current as of April 2009.

I discover www.linux-netbook.com and decided to register www.linux-netbook.org and www.linux-netbook.net. I hope to create two basic index pages today for these sites.

My Macbook was updated to Mac OSX 10.5.8.

2009-08-08T11:32:00.000-04:00

I updated the MacBook to OSX 10.5.8. Rather Apple did that over the Internet.

Learning SAS Output Delivery System (ODS).

2009-08-02T18:21:00.005-04:00

SAS stands for Scientific Analysis System or Statistics Analysis Software or Statistical Analysis System. I have learned SAS at Carleton university as part of my B.Math in statistics studies and then have further used it as a teaching assistant in statistics. In that work I helped teach SAS to undergraduates in statistics courses. I now use it daily at my workplace in the government.

I have been reading the book: Haworth, Lauren. Output Delivery System: The Basics (Cary, NC: SAS Institute, 2001). So I am studying the new Output Delivery System in SAS. I have read chapter 1 at work and am today reading chapters 2 and 3. I have completed the reading of chapter 2 so far today. Chapters 1 and 2 are merely introductions to what ODS is and what it can do. Although chapter 2 covers how ODS works with SAS procedures (PROC) and the output objects from procedures, and has some syntax for using ODS. Chapter 3 is about using ODS to output HTML files.

I am reading about Emacs and learning to use Emacs on my Dell Inspiron and my Macbook.

2009-08-02T15:05:00.003-04:00

I have been reading the book SAMS Teach Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours. I have read chapter 1 and chapter 3. I did not read chapter 2 as that was about installing Emacs on Windows NT. The book was written by Jesper Pedersen, et al. I have started to use the Diary in the Calendar in Emacs. I hope to become effective at email, code writing, LaTeX and basic word processing in Emacs. I have stated chapter 4 today.

I have started another end of month back up process.

2009-08-02T06:52:00.001-04:00

I am backing up to the network drive again today. I should start to examine and label all the DVD's I have used to back my eMac and my Macbook. I really need to make some progress on clearing off the two LaCie 250 GB USB drives to DVD. These would be good drives to have to store music when recording with the Remembrance computer which is now loosely placed in the music rack.

The backups continue, the e-mail back up is still slow and I got started on transferring the second USB drive to the new 1 TB network drive.

2009-07-02T17:53:00.002-04:00

I did another 12 hours or so of backups last night. I continued to back up e-mail from both the eMac and Macbook. I started in on the second 250 GB LaCie USB hard drive. I did manage to copy off a copy of Vista I had backed up there. I also backed up a copy of Win2K. Since these are single iso files these operating system files, they transfer quickly. And more importantly in personal files I got my back up of my first eMac onto the network drive. I used the old eMac from 2003 April to early 2006. I also started to transfer my older computer back ups going back to my Performa 580 CD which lasted from August 30, 1995 to early 1999. 1999 was the year I really started my statistics training and also I started to buy windows computers as well as Macs.

I found on an Iomega 20 GB USB hard drive my early 2006 Macbook backup folders and copied them to the Macbook for burning to DVD. This will take 12 DVD's for two folders at 6 copies each. Everything is now off this 20 GB Iomega USB drive so I will whip it clean and use it as a portable drive or give it away or sell it. I have someone now in mind to give this 20 GB Iomega USB hard drive to support his safe computing and to help me clean up a bit around here.

Only mail folders remain to be backed up on the Macbook and eMac

2009-06-28T17:37:00.003-04:00

The document folders on the eMac and Macbook are now backed up for this month. Also both desktop folders are backed up. So all that remains is to complete the mail folders back up. This takes longer as there are so many files as each e-mail is one file. Remembrance is backed up and that leaves only the Dell Studio and Dell Mini 9 to back up.

The documents folder is now backed up.

2009-06-27T17:14:00.001-04:00

The eMac documents folder is now backed up. All that remains to back up now is the email folder. I have started this folder backup. I also now need to finish backing up the Macbook which I did start the work on.

I am not sure what I am doing with my music rack...Music? Server?

2009-06-25T22:11:00.003-04:00

I have been putting more stuff in my music rack. I am not too pleased with the server I have. But I have not really put a lot of time into it yet. I did also buy a D-Link 16 port switch and did put that in the top 1U of my 10 U music gear rack.

eMac backups and the old e-mail policy.

2009-06-21T02:16:00.006-04:00

I have backed up the eMac's Desktop folder now. I am just verifying with the Get Info function that the two Desktops, the real one and the back up copy are about the same size.

Then I will continue the copying of files and folders from the Documents folder on the eMac to the back up copy on the network drive. Then I will back up e-mail. I will not bother to back up videos, photos, music or applications this time, as these do not change much. These especially do not change much on the eMac.

Back in early 2005 I had only an eMac and a Thinkpad. My philosophy was to keep all e-mail on the eMac when I got a Macbook to replace the Thinkpad that had broken that year. In the last six months I have lifted this policy a bit and generally read my e-mail on the Macbook. I did not want to do this for security reasons; given that I might loose a computer like a laptop outside the house I thought it better not to store e-mail on it. But I leave the e-mail on the server with the Macbook so it is still all downloaded eventually and stored on the eMac. But the eMac is getting old now. Also I am having trouble these days backing up the e-mail folders on the eMac to external drives and even more trouble backing up to DVD. When I did my e-mail on the Thinkpad before I started using only the eMac for e-mail, I could back up the e-mail to DVD no problem from the Thinkpad. There was simply less e-mail to backup back then.

I am beginning my mid month backups to a network drive.

2009-06-21T00:34:00.002-04:00

I have been starting my backups to a network drive for the mid month. So far, I am working with Remembrance and the eMac.

I am also transferring my network music library to the new 1 TB drive.

I still have not fully transferred the first of the USB external drives to the network hard drive. It is not an easy process. There are always files that produce error messages and stop whole copy operations.

The hard drive is physically in the server and the server starts.

2009-06-12T02:25:00.003-04:00

I found some flat headed screws from Remembrance and also my little compartment box. I was able to push the hard drive up against the IDE backplane. I am still not sure it is connected. I need to boot to the BIOS to check that. I will have to boot to the BIOS to set the boot device anyways.

I did hook the server up to a monitor and started it up. The computer tried to find bootable media.

Sure enough the computer started and showed 2 GB of RAM. This means the RAM is working too. The RAM cost about 60$ from an ebay seller.

The server hard drive trays are excellent but I need flat head screws

2009-06-11T16:42:00.003-04:00

I got the server hard drive trays and am ready to install the 200 GB hard drive left over from the IBM ThinkCentre. To do this I need to make sure the hard drive mounting screw are flush with the tray arms so typical hard drive mounting screws are not going to work. I need flat head screws. The screws need to be flush so the tray can slide into the server. I also have my first IDE backplane which basically means when the tray slides in, the hard drive connections plug right into the connectors on the computer. These connections are on this thing called an IDE backplane. So I do not need hard drive cables.

The next step with the server is to put in a hard drive.

2009-06-04T23:05:00.002-04:00

The next step is to put the 250 GB hard drive from my old IBM NetVista into the server. This was the NetVista's second hard drive and ran Debian Linux. The first step is to take this 250 GB hard drive out of Remembrance where is basically doing nothing as it is not recognised by the motherboard. I think the motherboard will not allow IDE and SATA drives to run at the same time or something. The hard drive trays for this server are at the post office now so I will need to pay 9 dollars customs and bring them home.

I hope to hear Richard Stallman speak tomorrow at Parliament Hill

2009-06-01T20:15:00.003-04:00

Richard Stallman a software developer and free software advocate will be speaking on Parliament hill tomorrow and I am hoping to hear him and then join him at a restaurant near by. I have been to this restaurant a few times for social computing gatherings.

The RAM memory has been placed in the server now.

2009-06-01T02:05:00.002-04:00

I received the server this week via UPS courier. I put the RAM memory in last night. It seems that hard drives may just plug into what is called an "IDE backplane". There seem to be only two case fans so I hope this server is not too noisy. There is one small power supply fan as well. The computer does not have a mouse port as it is a server so using one of these keyboards with a track ball set in a 1 U tray may not be the best idea. Also it does not appear to have an easy accessible PCI card slot. Thus the idea of using this as a music recording device has probably met the last straw now. So perhaps I will find another use for this as a home Intranet web server or an home Internet server. I am not sure now. I have spent about 125 dollars on the server and about 60 dollars on the RAM memory so far. So I have spent approximately 200 dollars on this computer so far.

I still need some more parts for the server.

2009-05-17T22:36:00.002-04:00

I have the server case, the motherboard, the CPU's and the RAM. I have one 200GB hard drive I was going to use on Remembrance that I can instead use in this server. I still need some hard drive trays for about 10$ plus shipping. I think I need four of them and the shipping for four of them is 25US$ or about 30CND$. That means about 70CND$ just for the hard drive trays. I also would like a 1U keyboard tray with keyboard and these seem to be about 120CND$ on ebay including shipping. So that is a little more than 200$ more. I did find a PCI sound card that will take a stereo input from the mixing board. This cost 51$ but the Linux drivers will be another 50US$ for the license for these drivers. Then I have to think about a video monitor and mounting that on the roto rack which is a 10u wheeled hard plastic rack. It has an AP812 power mixer on top now and a bass Power amp in the bottom and a bass tube preamp.

I bought a new used server on ebay.

2009-05-17T08:37:00.003-04:00

I bought a server case and motherboard for 19.98 US$ on ebay. The case is a rackable systems case similar to Rackable Systems 2U half depth C2004-BN but older. The motherboard is an Intel. Here are the specs:

Intel SE7501WV2 Dual Xeon Motherboard: Intel SE7501WV2 Dual Xeon, EATX, 12GB ECC DDR-SDRAM, 400/533MHz FSB
(MPN: SE7501WV2SCSI)

It also has Dual (2) Xeon 2.66Ghz Processors.

The total cost with shipping was 102CND$.

Dell Computers has authorized the return of the second laptop.

2009-04-29T21:52:00.003-04:00

Dell agreed to allow me to return the second laptop ordered by mistake. The problem was that I thought, I had canceled it but had been through a few orders and did not cancel each and everyone of them. Well I have one new Dell laptop now and one to ship back,

I just installed Kubuntu on the new Dell Inspiron.

2009-04-20T00:48:00.001-04:00

I decided to try out Kubuntu on the Dell Inspiron. I used about 52 GB for the Linux install.

Update on machines.

2009-04-18T22:12:00.002-04:00

I am still using the eMac because it stores all my email. It also can use the Canon printer two sided so often I print from that machine.

Remembrance has not been used for a few days and remains off. It now has a two monitor set up with the LG 19" wide screen as the main monitor and then the 17" CRT no name monitor is used beside it on the office desk as extra screen space. These are running off the eGeForce 8500 video card with its 1 GB of RAM as it supports dual VGA monitors.

My Macbook has become my main machine for day to day non work computing and is still a key machine for my graduate studies work. I use it generally for replying to and reading personal and other non work email. The MySQL and PHP setup on it is not working since I changed hard drives, so I do not access the Drupal on my home Intranet or my Media Wiki I set up for my studies. Neither of these web applications were set up on the Internet but instead working inside my home network behind the modem as a home Intranet.

I have a new Dell Inspiron 15 1545 laptop that I use for Eve Online so I can play that game from the comfort of the couch with the laptop on the coffee table. Other than Eve Online, I am restricting this laptop to work related computing and am not storing documents on its hard drive but instead using a USB key with it for storing work files. Also all the work files are non-confidential work files, as per, my workplace computer security policy. I may limit this new Dell to work only or perhaps also do school work on it. The Dell may at some point be used for music recording because it is relatively new, but that use would require a big investment in other recording equipment as well. But it will not be used to store email, pictures, or music at the moment. I will also not use it for social networking. I will use the Macbook for day to day social networking, as I have been for the past year or so.

The BIOS does not see the IDE hard drive.

2009-04-14T00:08:00.001-04:00

For some reason the BIOS is not seeing the hard drive. I will need to consult the motherboard's manual to see if something needs to be set.

I have successfully installed the 200 GB maxtor hard drive into Remembrance.

2009-04-12T12:05:00.001-04:00

I successfully installed the 200 GB hard drive. So it is in Remembrance and connected. I have booted up Debian and I will now see if I can access the drive and format it.

I bought a friend a used Apple G4 Titanium Powerbook and am setting it up for him.

2009-04-12T11:09:00.002-04:00

I bought a used Apple G4 Titanium Powerbook. This G4 processor is a 400 Mhz speed processor. The computer came with a fresh install of Mac OS 10.3. I am preparing it now for use. I installed X11. My friend wants to be able to record music so I installed Audacity and tested that with the built in microphone. I will installed Neo Office or perhaps Open Office as I believe Open Office now has a Mac version. I will also install Gimp.

I just got off the phone with my friend and he is thankful for my work on his new used Powerbook.