I am losing interest in computer specs and computer prices seem to be rising.

I am not really planning on buying any new computers lately. I did purchase a 2009 Mac mini used from someone locally. I am using that to load my emails successfully from the middle 1990s. I would like to get the Linux fixed on the Dell laptop with the hybrid video card and have the solution researched a few times but not permanently implemented and written to configuration files yet. I do though have my 11 inch Dell Vostro that runs Linux fine but it is a very under powered computer and may not be enough for music production then again it may in fact, do a fine job.

I am still loading emails into the MacOS Mac Mini computer

The Mac Mini Email software Mail is still downloading emails from 2010 to 2017 from my ISP’s POP back up folders. I intend to load all these emails and even older emails into one mbox file. Then I will test load that into my Ubuntu Studio laptop the Dell V130.

I am studying Python in depth now from some eBooks.

There were some eBooks bundled together that a statistician on Twitter told me about. She was trying to match donors with those wanting the books to arrange purchasing the bundles. I afforded the bundle for myself and am now reading two of the books. I am learning right now about Python installs and also development environments and package installation.

Backing up my laptop

I started to do a back up of my Dell workstation laptop. It is taking a long time because I have so many small Eve Online log files and Ingress notification emails. I really do not need to keep so many copies of these filed.

Email backup files can open in 'new to me' used Mac Mini.

I am able to import emails from more than twenty years ago to the Mac Mini. These were previously imported from backup files of a Mac Performa 580CD computer (A computer I used from 1995 to 1998-1999 that had my first computer mouse.). These mid-nineteen ninety emails were on Zip disk backups of the Performa at one point. I had previously imported these email files to my eMac sometime in the late 2000s. Now generally they are all mbox format files, so will open in a variety of email softwares including Linux email clients.

Now my project becomes loading all the emails I have from the past into the Mac Mini Mail software and then exporting them as one big mbox file. I will test with all the old Performa emails in one mbox file first. Then the challenge will be the Outlook Express files from the early 2000s. I believe I have lost most of my late 1990s emails on an old Windows 95 computer that was wiped. These Outlook email files have mostly already been imported into Mac Mail on the eMac, so this may be simple. Then it is simply a matter of importing more recent Outlook files form 2009 to 2017. I may organize these as one year at a time, mbox files.

Chosing a computer to record music

I wonder what computer I should use to record music? I am thinking my new used Mac Mini may do this but it seems a very slow machine. I will test it at audio recording. I may install Ardor on this Mac Mini. I do know the Linux computer I have Ubuntu Studio installed on works.

Finally the e-mail store is backed up to the USB key

Finally I moved the copying job from the Dell Vostro which kept over heating to the newer Dell Precision and the files copied over fine and that is done now.

I am now focusing on making a copy of the files on my laptops for a year end back up. I did not actually use a desktop computer at home this past year.

I am still struggling to get one copy of my old email storage backed up to to an USB key.

I am working with old email storage on a network drive and using my Dell Vostro to copy the files to a 64GB USB key. These are emails from between 1996 and 2010.

Still working on that one copy of the eMac email store to USB key

I am still working on backing up email. I also have to do year end back ups of my current laptops soon.

I have almost completed one copy of the eMac's email stores.

I am using my Dell Vostro 3350 to copy files from the network backup storage of eMac emails to a USB key. This is almost completed now. This has all of the existing emails from 1995 and 1996 and 1998 from my Mac Performa 580CD.

I canceled an order for a brand new Mac Mini and am trying to find a used Mac to get my email storage more portable.

I did order a Mac Mini from the local Apple Store but then canceled the order. I am going to next look for a used recent model mac computer and then possible not finding that, I will try to connect my old eMac Apple computer to an external monitor. This means only buying a Mini VGA adapter or find one around my office somewhere.

Getting email files off a broken Apple eMac computer.

My old 2006 eMac computer is broken and the monitor seem to be the broken part. The computer will still boot up. With a little direction and encouragement from my brother, I logged into the Apple eMac computer remotely over my home LAN from an Ubuntu Studio laptop. I am now copying the Library/Mail files off to a network drive. I have done this logging in remotely to a computer with a dead screen, once before for a friend whose computer was broken. A Linux computer is a good option for logging in remotely. Then I simply copy files off the hard drive to a network drive.

Tomorrow I pick up a brand new Mac Mini from the local Apple Store and bring it home and try to load the old emails into the new machine. I then may try to export those old 1995 to 2010 emails to Thunderbird.

My email backups are almost completed but I have not yet installed Thunderbird

I have email from storage on a network drive now backed up to a USB external drive. I also have started to back up the same storage to a simple USB key or memory stick. Next steps will be trying to import all this Pre-2010 email to Thunderbird email software with on a Linux computer or on a Windows 10 computer.

Email back ups and searching are two email concerns.

I am going to test out loading all my past 22 years of emails into Thunderbird and see if I can convert all the old files to load there. I am also concerned with a quick way of searching old emails.

Annual back ups of the laptops in my home.

I will back up the hard drives of laptops in my home to USB external drives and network shares and may also use some cloud services this year for the annual back up.

Mostly using a Dell Precision m2800 laptop at home

I have mostly been using a leased Dell Precision m2800 laptop at home. The lease runs another 7 months into the summer of 2018.

Ingress an exergame

I have been playing Ingress on my cell phone for about 21 months now. I am in Washington D.C. this weekend at a competition.

I missed posting for a few years now.

I guess I use social media more now and blogs less.

Also buying a Sony Smart Watch SW2

Managed to purchase a Smart Watch that will work with the clearance priced Xperia J phone.

Buying a Sony Xperia J cell phone with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

I will pay 49.95 plus tax for a cell phone with no term from Bell Canada. It will cost 50$ plus tax per month for the connection, voice and 200 GB of data from the net. It's a Sony Xperia J and I will may be buy a Sony Smart Watch 2 to go with it.

Buying a Dell Chromebook 11.

I have been buying Dell Windows 7 laptops and desktops sometimes for other people. I have also purchased a Dell Mini 9 netbook with Ubuntu and further purchased two Dell Vostro laptops with Ubuntu pre installed. This will be my first Chromebook and I am buying it with business financing.

Started a long book called Coders at Work.

I started a long book that interviews famous computer programmers. Seibel, Peter. Coders at Work: Reflections on the craft of programming. (New York, NY, Apress, 2009). The first programmer interviewed is very abrupt and says, he burned out programming. There were some lessons I took from his interview so far, and I am not done. His name is Jamie Zawinski and he programmed mostly in Lisp, helped with XEmacs and also worked at Netscape and Mozilla.

I have been buying laptops from Dell with Ubuntu installed by Dell.

I used to look all around for laptop suppliers who sold laptops with Linux already installed. I did not turn up much in those days. This lead to exploring UNIX laptops like Tadpoles on eBay. These were very expensive. I did do some Linux installs myself on various Thinkpads and a Toshiba. Eventually I became a Dell Canada customer being lead by Bell Sympatico to checking out their netbooks. I think netbooks are cool still and have given some to young kids in the 7 to 9 year old range. I noticed Richard Stallman uses a netbook, when I was in his company at a talk he gave. I have bought two very inexpensive laptops, one costing about 320$ brand new with Ubuntu already installed. This laptop is still working quite well and has never had any issues. On both of these laptops, I upgraded the Linux or changed to different Ubuntu flavours like Edubuntu, Kubuntu and more recently Ubuntu Studio.

This past month I have arranged a business lease from Dell for an XPS13 laptop with Ubuntu 12.04 installed. While usually these Ubuntu laptops have been cheap this one is more expensive. Yet this high end model is still much cheaper than low end laptops were 20 years ago.

Sharing recordings with Soundcloud

I have start6ed to share recordings of my guitar playing with Soundcloud.

Ardour use and drifing into Lilypond automation

I haven't really used Ardour since I was studying music course on Coursera.I do start it but never record.

I have started to learn more Lilypond and have used both Excel and SAS to automatically code music scores. I can adjust the code systematically and then feed it into Lilypond and produce both PDF books and also midi files. I am just getting started and the potential to write book length scores is now available to me

I have been using a Dell Alienware M14X for home computing

I have taken to buying Dell computers on credit. The latest one I bought is a Dell Alienware M14X and I paid for it in one year with no interest paid on the loan.

Part time coding job.

I started some part time work on a text analytics tool. I am coding data drawn down from various popular internet web sites.

Ubuntu Studio installed on my Dell Vostro 3350 as well and tested working fine for audio.

I thought about it and the cost of having yet another single field laptop. I have the Dell Vostro 3350 as a business computer and in the year I have owned it used it only sparingly for business plans and some conference paper work. I also use it to keep track of domain registration renewal dates. In other words I am not doing much with the business side of computing. Also a new laptop for just Ubuntu Studio is out of my price affordability right now. So I went ahead and split the 1 TB drive in half using the Ubuntu installer and installed Ubuntu Studio on my Dell 3350.

I also just purchased a nice Shure SM 81 condenser microphone which is my first condenser microphone. Testing both the Ubuntu Studio using Ardour and the microphone everything seems to work. Now I can practice my paper presentation audio too although I could have done that anyways with Audacity on Windows. I did use Adobe Audition on a trial license with Windows 7 on my new Dell Alienware M14X but could not get my USB audio interface to work as an input source. Figuring that on either Windows or Linux audio won't be a piece of cake I am deciding to go with Linux as it is cheaper and potentially much more professional.

Ubuntu Studio install

I can't really afford another laptop right now to install Ubuntu Studio on so I may install it on my quad boot desktop computer. I have only downloaded the DVD so far and have not burned it yet to disk.

Dell Vostro 3350.

I bought a new Windows 7 laptop a Dell 3350 Vostro model.

I was able to access one tape section from my Iomega Ditto drive.

I had been thinking there was a lot of data on this old tape. I found only one web site's back up files and some creative writing. I may be able to find a back up file on there but the simple copy function only showed these few files. I used my IBM Pentium 1 Thinkpad with Win98 to access the tape drive.

I searched out information and programs online to get this old tape drive working. It will only work in Win98, and Win NT. That's why I used this old laptop, as it is my only Win98 computer. In the end the software I found was just one on someone's FTP in Norway and so it was a bit of a risky download. The company no longer have the software available. Ageing computers are an issue.

I completed some year end back ups on my Dell Alienware and Dell Studio laptops

I have not been using my Macbook much in the past year nor the eMac. Mostly I use the Dell Studio laptop for daily personal work and the Alienware M11X for games. Both of these machines are backed up regularly but not automatically.

Sold my Dell Vostro 1015.

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.

I should probably make more DVD backups soon.

I backed up my Dell Studio.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I backed up the Dell Studio laptop.

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

Studying PERL again.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.