techiehenry

(Part 1 of my Ubuntu installation series)

Almost three weeks ago the latest release of the Ubuntu Linux distribution, Hardy Heron, was made available for download from numerous servers across the internet. I went and downloaded the i386 ISO image directly from the servers overnight, only to find out that it timed out somewhere on the 500Mb mark. Luckily I was able to find a torrent link from Distrowatch, and by then my download went fast and problem-free. By friday night I had the ISO images for Ubuntu and its siblings Kubuntu and Xubuntu.

What is new in this distro? Read the release notes here.

The following days happen to be weekends, so I have all the time in the world on Saturday and Sunday to do a little experiment: to finally convert my MacBook into one that dual-boots Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. So, here’s how it all went out.
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Mac clones aren’t really a new thing, but one has been making the rounds across all news sites on the internet for the past few weeks. CNet ran a review on the PsyStar OpenComputer, pictured below:

I don’t know how long Mac clones like this would last, but an article on OSNews may be correct in saying that machines like this that run Mac OS X could be rendered useless through Software update, just like what they do during an iPhone firmware update.

So, how do we call them, by then? Hackintosh, Frankenmac, or Jailbroken Macs?

Once in a while an application is released that would make you think it’s just another one of a lot of similar applications. That is, until you get the hang of using it.

Songbird is still on beta version (0.5), and it is based on the Mozilla browser. It may appear to be an imitation of the media players roaming around the internet, but it offers a lot more. It appears to be a mashup of a web browser, iTunes, Last.fm, and Frostwire.

It’s a web browser in the sense that you can input any URL in the address bar, and it takes you to that page. It works like iTunes, in a way that it can detect your iPod and add or remove music installed on it. It works like Last.fm by presenting playlists of songs based on a given search item using SkreemR. Lastly, it works like Frostwire inthat it allows you to download the songs — but with Songbird the songs may come from the iTunes Music Store, Amazon, or from a regular P2P network.

It’s great tool to use in searching for indie music, as there are direct links to The Hype Machine and InSound.

To try this media-player-cum-browser, download it from the Songbird home page.

If you’ve been to the mall lately, you can see some of them having these projections on the floor that seem to be reacting to the movements of people passing by. I myself saw this when my son came across one that has a game for kids. I dismissed the thought of these things as a novelty, until I saw this video from one manufacturer of such projectors.

I just had a bad experience from the Linksys WRT54Gv5 that I got as a present from my wife. After a few months of operation, it suddenly went nuts.

After an hour of operation, it would suddenly disconnect from the internet. It would not let me surf websites, check my email, or anything else that I usually do that requires me to be connected. Firware updates turned out not to be the solution either. As the warranty from the store we bought it was only 6 months and the router is on its 9th, I’m stuck with a broken product.

Needing a wireless router now that I have a laptop (which travels around the house whenever I’m home), I went to the shop to find a replacement. Upon careful consideration, I arrived at getting one with a brand name familiar to me when I was working in Japan.

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