Today's computing

I am burning some back up DVD's on my Macbook and will also use the LaCie software that came with my LaCie hard drives to back up the Macbook user account. I am backing up the Macbook user account regularly because it is a small enough folder to save multiple copies on the external hard drive. I am also mailing back up DVD's to my father today along with a family copy of iWorks 2006. I also am doing the usual email and blogging and web surfing today.

The scanner is working and nothing seems amiss.

I got the scanner to work and did what I had to do using jpeg images from the scanner and printing these files opened in safari.

I am making some backup DVD's of my documents folder today.

I have made a number of backups but am making some documents folder back up DVD's this morning.

I ran out of ink for my Brother copier and am installing my Canon scanner model FB630U.

I was browsing the canon.ca web site for drivers and did not even see the MacOSX drivers. I am now downloading those and will try those instead of the Mac OS 9 drivers and Canoscan tool box I just installed. The problem is that my Brother multifunction printer is out of ink and can not copy right now. So I am reverting back to my scanner for photocopying.

I am backing up my eMac user account today.

I am using LaCie back up software to back up my eMac this evening.

A total of ten DVD's burned.

I made five copies each of two DVD folders. Three copies will stay here in my office and the other two will be sent to a trusted secure off site location. In other words to a family member for storage. These two DVD's contain back up copies of my Macbook and eMac Desktop folders from various periods during last year. So they are sort of archived folders rather than quick back up folders. Quick back up restore files are on external hard drives in my office.

Stella 5 and 9

I used Stella 5 and 9 at school last Tuesday. I will investigate paying for Stella now.

I have two school provided softwares now installed on my Macbook.

I have installed Norton Anti-Virus 10 on my Macbook. I also run a Cisco VPN now on my Macbook. Both of these were provided by my school and I downloaded them to the Macbook while in the library at school.

Teaching a friend about MySpace.

My friend has problems with spy wear and stuff like that on his PC. Meaning he has trouble operating a PC. He is now using Firefox which may help him a bit. I showed him MySpace on my Macbook connected to my TV so he could watch me surf. I gave him warnings and showed him the friends links in MySpace and I also showed him MySpace music and how you can play music on band page at MySpace. Literacy is the issue.

Vista will not work on a virtual PC on my eMac.

Aparently the virtual PC on my eMac is not enough of a machine to run Vista. So for now this copy of Vista I have is being saved. I am thinking of buying another used IBM computer but might also buy a refurbished machine from futureshop. A used Desktop from IBM might be about 400$. A used Thinkpad might be about 700$.

KDE on a Macintosh

Using Fink I installed the base KDE system. Now when I start X11 X windows displays an xterm window. I still don't have KDE in all its glory but I am closer to that goal.

Nothing much new on my home machines, but I did continue with the redesign of my home office.

I have not been doing much new with my home equipment. I just did some back ups of the Macbook. I will also check on doing some back ups of the eMac too this weekend. I may play some Second Life later today or over night.

I did help my neighbour by transfering the old files and folders from her Win 95 machine to her Thinkpad. I also got the Thinkpad outlook express working for her email. She paid me a bottle of alcohol which I gave away to another radical graduate student.

In my web master job I set up some blogs for more people using moveable type at yahoo hosting. I also gave these people a teaching session in person to explain blogging and get them interested. They gave me their on-line nick names during the in person session and I set up most of thier blogs now and just need to set up one more blog.

I cleaned up my office some more and am getting a fresh look to my office.

My iPod is up to date and powered up for a day of listening at work.

I thought my iPod was broken as two pairs of earphones did not play the right side of the stereo tracks. So I tried different earphones but they were dead too. I thought my iPod was broken but it still played stereo on the Harmon Kardon receiver. Instead, I used my PSP and also on the PSP the right side was dead. In the end it turned out two pairs of earphones were dead. I am now using my original PSP earphones with my iPod and this works fine. So my next computer related purchase might be some new iPod earphones and at the same time I might buy from Apple a mini-DVI to DVI adpater to use with my Macbook.

I now have a copy of Windows Vista Business Edition burnt.

My school pays Microsoft so students can have legal copies of microsoft software. I was able to download and burn a copy of Windows Vista business edition. I am not sure how I will use this copy but perhaps I will save it to use with Leopard on my Macbook. For now I can only install it in my virtual PC on my eMac but since I only have one copy of Vista I may save it for the Macbook.

In other OS news I am trying to install KDE on my Macbook which is a major challenge I am finding.