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.