Still burning backup DVD's from the 2006 state of the Macbook1.

The eMac DVD drive is not opening so I switched to Macbook for backups and then turned off the virus software and the Macbook is doing fine burning the DVD's of the 2006 end of year files that were on the Macbook1. These are copied off the USB drive they were stored on by LaCie Backup software which backed up the user folder then in 2006.

The email from 2006 is all backed up now to six DVD's and properly labeled. The whole user folder is not being backed up to a number of separate DVD's and I am not sure how many DVD's I will need to split the user folder into. So far I have the folders and files decided for two DVD's and the first disk is now burned to six identical copies. The backups continue.

Buying a Tadpole laptop

I am looking into buying a Tadpole laptop. These run Sun Solaris as the operating system. I also have bought Sun Solaris 9 for Dummies for 13 dollars including shipping through Amazon.ca's network of bookstores.

My final exam was written. I did so so.

I think I only scored B on my final exam. I know I had a few questions wrong. I have no formal classes until the fall now when I will study simulations. I am designing a simulation and have written some code in R to simulate a working week. I have some pseudo code that I can now implement in other computer languages.

I enjoyed a creative person's gathering in Second Life or a creativity meeting in a virtual world

I spent two hours this afternoon in Second Life enjoying a creativity gathering. I met artists from Europe and America.

Slowly installing the media wiki on the Debian Linux IBM Thinkcentre

I have not been using Linux much. I did start Apache2 last week and downloaded Mediawiki and started MySQL. I used KPackage to install all of these. Yesterday before school but after work I followed the instructions to get PHP5 to allow MySQL. I did need again to change permissions to edit a file. I had to go as far as using a root terminal to get chmod to work on the file. I edited with vi and then chmoded the file back. I expanded the media wiki software in the var/www folder and stopped.

I have been using the media wiki quite a bit on the Macbook for my study organisation. I have also been using LATeX much more and have learned to use BibTeX now.

For fun I have been playing Eve Online.

I must focus on school work now so tinkering will have to be put on the back burner for a week or so because it takes a lot of time to do.

Fink is now updated and the Macbook has a fresh install of the X code developer tools.

I updated Fink after following their instructions for update problems. I had to command line delete all my developer tools and then reinstall from the Leopard DVD. I then was finally able to install ImageMagic. I have that name wrong. I now need to adjust both Drupal and Mediawiki to use ImageMagic for handling graphics.

Drupal is up and running with some issues.

I got Drupal running now on my Intranet. This is also running on my Macbook and will only be accessible when hooked up to my router, I think. I need to schedule a cron job for this application. I also need to install ImageMagic or GD image software. Both Drupal and MediaWiki need these image softwares.

I will now install Drupal on my Macbook.

I have MySQL running now and PHP 5 working with Apache2 on the Macbook. So now I will investigate Drupal as I build an Intranet based on my Macbook. If this works out I may run another Intranet server on my IBM machine under Linux.

Mediawiki is installed on my Macbook now

I have Mediawiki installed now. I have started to use it to record my research but at this point I am only sketching out basic main pages. I had installed the 64 bit MySQL by mistake and that is why it would not work. I reinstalled the proper version for MySQL for my Macbook and it worked. I followed the very good instructions at the Mediawiki wiki to install Mediwiki and it is now working.

I am setting up a study wiki on my own computer not to be web based.

I was using Librarything.com and got all excited by messages between grad students about what they use for organising their research. They seemed to have settled on Wiki's. I use blogs and emails and appointments and pen, paper, and ink. I also use a variety of structures and software tools. I have tried using Microsoft Project software but it is not that great.

To use a Wiki I selected I needed to install it on my Macbook. I first had to start Apache which I have done. I then needed to install MySQL 5.0 which I have downloaded and run two installers and then added the preference panel for MySQL. But so far I can not get MySQL started. I have studied MySQL in the past. I also managed to edit the file httpd.conf for apache so that PHP 5.0 will run now. I had to use vi for the edit and also chmod to change the permissions on the file so I could save my edit. I then changed the permissions back too. I had to use Linux for Dummies to use vi and to use chmod. I will leave this note here and report back later. I did take a break at this point to read some books before documenting this. I am now going back to the install of MediaWiki following the instructions for that software. It promises TeX support and images. I am going to run MediaWiki on my laptop and not serve it over the net.

Ice Dove for email

Ice Dove is thunderbird for Linux. I am attempting to transfer all my Mac mail to Ice Dove this morning.

I deleted my Eve Online subscription.

I played the computer game Eve Online for a little more than one month. I was motivated to try out Eve Online by a powerpoint slide presentation by someone who works at IBM. Roo Reynolds who was presenting his slides on computer games (social, massively multi player, virtual world) to a British charity audience shared these powerpoint slides at Slide Share.(Tracy Kennedy introduced me to Slide Share by putting my Slides from my facebook paper there). He was showing the charities what games could do for charities. Sort of like the Second Life Relay for Life event, which I tried out a little last summer with some other students. His main point about Eve Online was that it was cooperative. Players, although strangers would help each other play the game. This could help me understand community based training and collaborative learning of computer operating. About a week ago, I was able to experience this in Eve Online as two other players helped me with a mission. This consisted of clicking buttons to make the play ships shot at other computer played ships until they were dead. So two other players helped me kill these computer ships, or in the language of role playing "NPC's" ships and thus complete the mission. Of course, the whole major theme is space ship battle.

I deleted my subscription because the game was taking too much valuable time from my home life and other activities and was costing money and I have no extra money. Also my main focus both with computers and school work is not in the entertainment gaming field. Yes, I can make connections to other topics like helping strangers and cooperative play but as I said it took too much time and too much money. I have also been able to experience the cooperation at a basic first time experience level. But games have traditionally been used in education to effect cooperation (aka Game Theory).

Enough with that game and information society cash out stream. This will save me 15$ per month as that was going to become the cost of that game. The game Second life is now costing me 33$ a month on a regular fee basis plus costs of buying land and other items. In fact, I am this weekend, buying another 512 basic lot adjoining my present virtual 3D land holdings

SubEthaEdit

I downloaded a trial copy of SubEthaEdit. This software for the Mac allows editing by more than one person and also editing over the Internet. I have not tried it out with someone over the Internet but my brother is willing to try it with me. I have this software on both my Macbook and my eMac.

I downloaded Adobe InDesign to learn.

I downloaded a trial copy of Adobe InDesign to learn for a job at work. The problem now is version conflict. The tutorial book I have from work covers a version and, in fact, the versions of InDesign we use at work are not the same as the latest offering from Adobe. This could cause problems. Oh well I will install this latest version on my Macbook running Leopard. I read too at Adobe's web site that Dreamweaver 8 which I bought for my Macbook may give me problems under Leopard and Adobe will be offering no help with these problems. There is a solution to this and that is to uninstall Dreamweaver from the Macbook and install it on my eMac. But I have not yet found Dreamweaver to be a problem under Leopard. So if I did not have to learn this for work I would not be installing it on the Macbook and learning it. I would be using Open Source software all the way. Then again, this is learning that is work related.

I installed Vista on the IBM Thinkcentre

My school program is part of the Microsoft academic network so we get free Microsoft operating systems. I upgraded the Windows XP to Vista on the IBM Thinkcentre about three weeks ago. Some programs no longer work now. Also when I install a program it does not appear in the programs list. I am not able to use the Linksys Music bridge right now. All that work scrubbed.

Playing Eve On-Line

I started playing Eve On-Line this evening. This space adventure game is played by thousands of persons at the same time. I just created a Character and started to learn to play the game. I am playing a female character named Margarite Liberte and she is a Gallente character. I will get the spelling right and figure out more of the web presence of this game as I go. Game costs look to be twenty dollars per month. Is this the space simulation for me? My total game costs would be about 53$ per month including Second Life membership and land costs. Also this pressures the urge to buy a new monitor or new computer although the Macbook was bought knowing the Macbook would not be good for Second Life. It does seem to manage to play Eve Online with only two crashes so far. I tried Eve on the IBM Thinkcentre too running under Vista and it was fine. I could not install the game under Debian 4.0 Linux because I am missing a python component.

Successful burn of only one disk

I have may be ruined three of the 8 GB disks because they could not be verified by the eMac's burning software. I did get one disk burned and verified though. For the other three disks the data got burned and is on the disks it just has not been verified. I did also manage to get the one 2006 documents folder down to below 8 GB so it would fit on only one of these 8 GB double Layer (DL) dvd disks.

I am preparing the eMac's documents folders from 2006 and 2007 for burning

Again I was deleting movies and burn folders that had been left over on the documents folders I want to back up. I have some new 8 GB DVD's now. I have fifteen so I will use 12 of them to do two back ups. I think I can just back up the one documents folder from the end of 2006.

The backups continue I am moving on to the eMac backups now with the Macbook mostly completed.

I spent this morning preparing the backups of the Desktop folders of the eMac for DVD archiving. I inspected the five dated Desktop folders that go back to December 2006 when I bought the 250 LaCie USB drives. So there are four Desktop folders covering 2007. I also made a folder of the Desktop for now, January 2008.

I took a different approach and an important step I am realising. I went into each Desktop folder and deleted old burn folders and movie files. These were mostly movies I had collected from google that are copyright free . These were downloaded for the PSP or iPod. Most were movies used in Internet research such as Apple computer TV advertisements. Another movie was a documentary on how the Internet came to be. This deleting is important because it will help not only cut down the size I need to archive but it will also clean up the back ups in case someone else has to open them some day. It also cleans them up for my own use and I learned some practical file management this way. I do not need to back up other peoples stuff so much. These movies are only related to me as research sources I have used and will most possibly be still available from the Internet in the future. Also I do not need to save more than one copy; not one copy in each desktop. So for these movies I left one copy in the first Desktop it was found in and then deleted these large files in future desktop folders.

So I now have all these Desktop folders ready for archiving to DVD. The six folders should now fit on one 4.7 GB DVD and I have at least six blank DVD's to use for this. This is a way of clearing up the eMac's LaCie 250 GB backup drive. The other LaCie drive had 80 GB free after the backups last week and it is now back in regular service for the Macbook again but not with Time Machine or LaCie backup software but instead a simple copy of the three basic folders every other month.

These three folders are
1. Documents
2. Desktop
3. Mail and Mail downloads

I am buying fifteen 8 GB double layer DVD's today for 20 dollars and then the next purchase will be 50 or 100 4.7 GB DVD's.

I helped some other poor computer owners to use their computers.

I won't go into great details because I respect the privacy of these persons. But I did try to upgrade the RAM on an old PowerBook Lombard but made the mistake of installing the 512 MB RAM chip on the top RAM slot. I now have to return to try again and this time install the RAM on the bottom slot. This should bring the Lombard up to 576 MB RAM. The only other thing I will do for this person's Lombard is get it a bigger hard drive. But that can wait for now but I will start to look around for a brand new 20 or 30 GB hard drive.

Yesterday, also I connected someone to the Internet. She was paying for the service for about 5 months without using it. This was Rogers Yahoo Internet service that was delivered by a technician but not hooked up. The technician could see that she had only a windows 98 Pentium1 laptop but left her stranded with the bill. I helped her buy an new HP low end desktop as a microloan and gave her my Sony LCD 17" TV monitor for a complete recent system which she has been learning to use. So yesterday we hooked the system up to the net and then I updated a variety of softwares and she now has an email address. She has some basic understanding of what she is doing now but we covered a lot in the two hours of help. I have her using Thunderbird, Firefox and Open Office.

There is one more person to help and perhaps today she will also get some help.