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

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

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

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

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

I was unable to install Debian 3.0 so far on the Thinkpad 360SC.

I did manage to make my May back up CD of my laptop. I did not back up email or favorite/bookmark web pages though. I lost all my netscape email after I configured netscape to use Norton Internnet Security. What's that they say about badley configured security software is more dangerous than no security software?

These are the computer related books I borrowed on Thursday night after my LAWS4701 class taught by Chris McNaught.

Wall, David, ed. Crime and the Internet (London, Routledge, 2001).

This book suggests that neither a big crime or no crime has occurred because of the Internet. Rather a lot of minor small crimes have occurred and we still aren't sure what, where, why, who, when and how the Internet is existing and changing existence. It is a collection of papers about Internet crime by criminologists from the UK. I have not read much of it yet.

Grabosky, Peter & Smith, Russell G. & Dempsey, Gillian. Electronic Theft: Unlawful Acquisition in Cyberspace (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

This book examines cybercrime but in particular theft using computers.

Zylinska, Joanna ed. The Cyborg Experiments: The Extensions of the Body in the Media Age (London: Continuum, 2002).

I don't know what this book is about yet.

Gray, Chris Hables. cyborg citizen: Politics in the Posthuman Age (New York: Routledge, 2001).

This book examines briefly all kinds of cyborgs but the main theme is the politics of the cyborg age in particular participatory politics. So this book is both maybe a green politics book and also in the subfield of political science studies that I place my own political science studies. I am tempted to read more of this book but also tempted not too.

I am installing Debian 3.0 on my Thinkpad 360SC. I am doing it as a network install. I got this Thinkpad a 8MB memory upgrade. It now has 20MB of memory.

I did it I got www.cyb.org to point to this blog. I will know pay the fee to get the adds off this blog.

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

I hard copy backed up my two blogspot blogs but these are only in rough reading copies for carrying around with me. In a minute to two I will burn the my documents folder of this PC to CD for the month's end back up of same folder. It is about 3 years of laptop computing in that folder involving two different laptops.

I am frustrated with Linux. It is not worth all this trouble to have an open software that is free to use. Although I have in the past been frustrated with Windows too. I would say only the Mac is not frustrating at the same level. Maybe it just because I try to do so much with computers and own too many of them.

I am considering switching to Linux on the laptop. The choice is between Fedora Core and Xandros. I would have to buy the Xandros. I have the Fedora Core 1 CD's.

I would have to have access to my Windows data mostly the Word files are important. I will make this month's back up CD later today around mid-night.

I will also print off monthly copies of my blogs for hard copy reference and back up.

I also now think I have the first four Debian 3.0 r2 disks burnt on CD but trying to install on the Duron box the 2.4 kernel did not work. It stalled on the drivers and modules section install.

I got an addware program by accident on my laptop. I was downloading napster from www.napster.ca when I got it. I phoned a business journalist who did a piece on napster and alerted him. Now my Internet Explorer won't work on my laptop. I am not sure how I will update WinXP anymore.

Soon it will be time to back up my laptop to CD again. I will do that next Monday. Tonight I will do a zip disk back up of my personal files.

I worked on my old 486 laptop project early this morning. Soon I hope the 16MB DRAM PCMCIA card will arrive and I will install Debian 3.0 r2. I got the ethernet PCMCIA card working a bit by experimenting with modconf and loading and unloading modules in the kernel. I got the traffic lights to light up on the router and the cable coming out of the ethernet card, the dongle. But they would not blink meaning no transmission is happening. I was also not able to ftp from the laptop. I decided to scrap the x install and work on getting some programming done using the GNU compiler collection and maybe using Elvis and trying out it's highlight syntax functions. I also tried to install tex.

Looks like I will be using my WinXP laptop a lot as I am in school again. That is the main function of this laptop is that it is a school work tool.

In first year a couple of people advised me to put in twice as many out of class study hours as classroom hours in first year university. One of them also said in fourth year one would need to put in even more hours. In this fourth year law course I have put in 33 hours so far outside of class. I have put in 4.5 hours class time so far. So right now out of class to in class has a ratio of 33 to 4.5 or 7.33.

I have a computer slide show started on emergency preparedness and GIS for this course. I also have a paragraph or two started for my course paper. I did both of these study tasks with Open Office (www.openoffice.org).

I have to take my WinXP laptop to school today for a lecture. It is raining a little so I will have to wrap it in a bag inside my laptop bag.

I am writing and researching another school paper on the WinXP laptop. I am also using the eMac fairly constantly. I think the Linux projects will be on hold for a while to reduce stress.

I had some thoughts tonight of beginnning and continuing to study for the LPI 101 certification again. But I can't afford anything extra right now and one of my domain names is up for renewal and I have an idea for a new domain name to point to this blog.

Here is an interesting UN web page with plenty of articles about computers. http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2003/issue4/Digital.asp. Have a look at a few of the articles.

Status Report

• The Win XP IBM T30 laptop is fine and backed up.
• The eMac is fine but not backed up.
• The IBM 325 PC server is fine for NT 4.0 and on the linux side the Fedora has problems with launching X.
• The debian 2.1 laptop the thinkpad 360 is robust but not networked and no X yet.
• The duron is not working right now.
• I am think of buying a Mac OS 7.5 disk on ebay this week for my Quadra.