So grateful for Sarah

You know it really cracked me up that some people were upset about the codename of linux mint 17.3 being Sarah. Seriously, people. You really have nothing better to do with your lives than to complain about something like that? Come on now.

It’s just a codename.

Besides, Sarah in the Bible was a good woman. Hard-working and sure knew how to stand by her man. The type of woman I want by my side when things get scary so if anything it should be seen as a good thing to be named after her. So while, I know that wasn’t in mind at the time I think it is most appropriate just the same.

Sarah gave me something that I have wanted to use since 2013…..Wobbly windows!!!

Wobbly Windows!! Hooray!!!

Yes, so now I can go straight outta Compton and into Compiz. I think it’s a much nicer place anyway.

It also doesn’t hurt that 17.3 Sarah solves a problem I have been having for years but just didn’t know what it was called. Actually, I still don’t know what it’s called but at least now it’s explained better here .

Now if you are concerned about the changes Clem has spoken of to come in Linux Mint 18 then that makes more sense. Reason I say that is that likely for many of us we came as refugees from Ubuntu and honestly are afraid of Linux Mint doing what was done with Ubuntu when it brought out Unity.

Just the same it does give me much comfort to know that if I truly don’t like the changes that are to come then I can just click my mouse and have everything just like I want it. This is something that gives me more confidence in Clem and the rest of the team.  They, unlike some people who I will leave nameless…..

Sike!!!

Remember when Ubuntu started using Unity as its desktop environment?  I sure do.   In fact I will be so bold as to say that Linux Mint 18 will cause more unity than that mess that has the audacity that is called Unity.  I hated that so much it caused me to leave Ubuntu and come to the warm arms of Linux Mint.  If you want to read more about that see what I wrote about it at the time.

Again it was anything but unifying.

 

 

 

How I got started with Blender

When you first look at Blender I feel as though you are totally forgiven for feeling intimidated by it. In fact that was exactly my experience, yet I decided to press on anyway. Really I was determined to cast my fears aside and enter a brave new world.  One that I have wanted to  be a part of since high school. Thanks to this wonderful website for being one of several sites to inspire me to do this.

Well, over a decade later I finally got a piece of the pie for I am at long last in a position to follow the dream and thankfully it would be no simple fantasy

Yet, at long last I was able to go ahead and make something. Since then I have done the tutorial several times and each time I changed some of the details of it.  I also did renders on my x201 laptop and even on my Fujitsu Lifebook 4215.  It did pretty well on the x201 but the Fujitsu was well, I’ll tell you later about that.

I guarantee it!!

Of course, I prefer using my PC with my 30 inch Apple Cinema Display connected to it to work on Blender as it has much more kick than either of my laptops

No way i was letting that nice monitor go to waste!!

Then I decided to do it again and this time change the thickness of the cup to 0.9 vs. 0.7 and I know I know you are like…….Big hairy deal. And that’s perfectly fine, because I was just going for a minor difference before I completely lose my mind and make more drastic changes.

Just to be clear this is #3 and changed the roughness to 2 instead of 1. Changed the color, but decided to keep the original thickness of the cloth. The material I chose was silk instead of the regular cloth so don’t start with the whole “but silk is cloth moron!”.

LOL!! Well….duhhhhh!!!

Lamp strength doubled to 4,000 and I think that is why the cup looks as if its textured. Believe me I was just as surprised to see that effect as you are. Speaking of surprises, I thought the rendering process was going to be 20 minutes. Frankly I’m just glad they didn’t go by like hours to be honest with you.

Well, it was 17 minutes so not that far off really

Well, there you have it. Another bad creation by yours truly. Be on the look out because more are coming soon. Also, I am strongly considering doing more videos on You-tube so I’ll talk more about that later. Now, if I could just convince the Linux Mint guys the next time that the letter “I” comes around to name the version “Iesha”, that would be just great.

It sure would!!

PAE might prove to be useful to me

Recently I decided to get more RAM for my laptop, and I spoke about that in the posts whose links are available at the bottom of this one.

At the time I learned that since I have a 32-bit system, I would be limited to about 3.2 GB RAM that can be used.

Say it isn’t so!!!

Well, hopefully I can, because I just installed a pae kernel. Which raises a very good question:

Whats pae?

Well, PAE stands for Physical Address Extension.  It allows a person running a 32-bit system to be able to use more than the 3.2 GB limitation.

Theoretically it means that I could install lots and lots of RAM and still be able to use it, at the same time while it would be useful for something like virtual machines as an example, it still wouldn’t be so practical as far as cost is concerned.  Not to mention that most programs wouldn’t even be able to take full advantage of it anyway.

Well, after installing pae I found that my above observation of only having access to 3.2 GB of RAM was true so pretty much I got 700MB more than I had before but really 800 MB is wasted.

in the words of Beavis and Butthead:

 

 

 

 

posts https://swift110.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/ram-ram-ram/.

https://swift110.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/time-to-get-more-memory-part-2/

Stupid me!

A very useful podcast aggregrator

All this time I have been downloading content from Jupiter Broadcasting and it has never dawned on me to simply use their rss feed in gpodder.

Until today!

I really feel like a dummy.  I have been going to www.jupiterbroadcasting.com and one by one I would download the shows I want such as LinuxUnplugged, Scibyte and Linux Action Show.  Now I don’t have to worry about doing that again thanks to something I already had installed.

Goodness, I really do learn as I go along, just as my about me page spoke about.

 

 

 

About me

About me.

Linux Mint is still my mate

Now that I have been using Linux Mint for over a year and a half I must say that I am very happy with it.

Previously, I was concerned about being stuck with a desktop that I just didn’t like. Goodness I would be so upset if I was limited to what the other operating systems are offering. Fortunately thanks to the power of Linux that would prove to be a fear deferred.

When I got started with Linux I was using Gnome 2 and fell in love with it.  I remember the time when we first met and I said to myself……..

What a wonderful world!!!

Yes, I had to get used to the idea of not installing programs that end in .exe, or having to go to various sites to get what I need.  But what I got used to quickly was the concept of being able to install everything that I want without having to go to a brick and mortar store, or spend money that I really just didn’t have at the time.

As a result you can probably understand why I love using Linux in general but to narrow it down even more I love using Linux Mint with  Mate.  I tried XFCE and wasn’t feeling it and Unity I feel was anything but.  I even tried cinnamon and I can’t quite figure it out but I just preferred Mate over all of those.

I digress.

Yes, I am aware that now there exists a Mate version of Ubuntu.  I am happy to hear that as I want to see Mate used more and more and Ubuntu is a wonderful vehicle to raise its popularity .  But to be honest when it comes to Ubuntu its a bit…..”Too late baby now its too late.”

Thanks Carole…..

Now I am on Linux Mint 17 and Mate continues to be great.  I look forward to continued use of it for the foreseeable future.

To the developers of Mate I say thanks…I wish you love

I haven’t forgotten about you

told you I love nature

I know this year I have written the fewest posts since I started back in Summer of 2011, but please be assured that I am not stopping this journey of blogging.  I just got hit with a period where I just didn’t feel very motivated to write very much.

You’ll probably be happy to hear then that I have several posts that I am working on now and they will be available soon.  I am also hoping to be able to do at least three posts per week.

In the meantime however, there is plenty of material here already.  So much that it would take you quite some time to read it all.  Thousands of posts that either I wrote personally or reposted that I think you will enjoy quite a bit.

 

Whether its talking about my childhood spent outdoors that I need to expand upon, my love for Linux, or just random rants  such as this and that  .  I also love to write about my fondness of nature   I have no doubt there is something for everything in what I write.

With that being said:

Don’t you….forget about me!

Talk about overdue

I got so excited over updating how I got started with Linux that I made it extra long.  Oh well.  I have no doubt you will enjoy it anyway.

Update to how I got started in Linux

 

It’s amazing how much things change, even in a very short period of time. For instance, I go from only using Windows, to being exposed to Linux, and then to Mac. To be more specific, Windows XP, Ubuntu 9.10, and Snow Leopard.

Looking at 2010 while I wasn’t exactly seventeen it was nonetheless a “very good year”, for it was nnnnwhen I got started with Linux. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I first put in that live CD. Who knew the fantastic voyage that awaited me.

I most certainly did not!

Some time the following summer perhaps on a Sunday or maybe not, I wrote this post. In fact, it was one of the first I would put on WordPress. I decided to revisit it nearly three years later simply because I hadn’t gotten around to doing so before.

I just so happen to read that post above after all this time and some things jumped out to me.

At the outset I stated that things change, sometimes quite a bit and that applies in this case as the Barnes and Noble in Georgetown, that I went to that wonderful evening is no more. In fact, it’s been a while since it was open. One of several in the DC area. Now, I look at the huge building that housed that wonderful bookstore and it now contains a Nike store instead. Frankly, it makes me feel very sad. Especially since I have such wonderful memories of hanging out there with my mom and sis, where we would spend countless hours reading books.

Oh, the places I can’t go!!!

Thankfully there are other options and I used one of them when I purchased Linux Format Magazine June 2013 edition. If features a review of fifty distros of Linux and has been quite interesting thus far. It even comes with a bonus DVD featuring one hundred games. I absolutely love it, for it means I can pop in the live DVD into my Mac or Windows box and play all the Linux games I want.

Now to take things back a bit, I recall a time when I would dedicate a single day to use of Linux. Now, I use it over 90% of the time, despite having several other PC platforms to choose from.

Yes, that includes Mac OS X Which coincidentally I am running LibreOffice on and making use of my 30” cinema display so here’s lookin’ at you…kid.

Its funny that when I got started with Linux, I only knew about Ubuntu. Now I am aware of the hundreds of flavors that are available. In fact, if I wanted to I could create my own.

Hmm….Venubuntu, Anthony OS, or perhaps Venable OS…..the list goes on and on and on.

Speaking of flavors, since 2010 I have tasted a bunch of them. OpenSuse, Puppy Linux, Linux Mint, Ubuntu up until 10.10 Maverick Meerkat, and Pinguy OS, to name a few. I do like the fact that I now have more powerful computers that allow me to compare them simultaneously in Virtualbox.

That’s a real plus!

Oh, and anybody that tells you that you have to be an expert or some kind of computer geek to use Linux. I’m gonna have to kick some flavor in ya ear, because nothing could be farther from the truth, especially with Ubuntu and others making some moves so that people from Mac or Windows are more comfortable. One of those moves being the Unity desktop, which is not my cup of tea. At the same time others like it and thats fine.

It is indeed their perogative after all.

the wonderful thing is that if you do not like the desktop or basically the way your screen looks like before you load up whatever programs you are about to use then you can change it quite easily unlike on Windows 8, or Mac OS with them you get what they choose to give you, don’t like it tough.

For me, I prefer the good, old-fashioned Gnome 2 interface, but alas……it’s days are over I’m afraid. True, we do have the Mate and Cinnamon projects and I like them both, but the truth is…I can’t go a day without my sunshine.  My sunshine just happens to be Mate.

How ironic!

Oh, and I still dual-boot, which means to run more than one operating system on the same hard drive. It can also mean to have one operating system on one hard drive and then another on different hard drive in the same computer. This is what I intend to do with my Mac Pro. Currently on one of my laptops I have Windows 7 that I barely use, and then Linux Mint 13, which I use pretty much all the time. On my Lenovo x201 that I recently purchased, I decided to just put Linux Mint 13 on it and that will remain until Linux Mint 17 is released.

Whew!! This has been a lot of fun but I must stop now. At least I kept my promise to update you guys. Thanks for your support and please by all means tell your friends and family about this blog.

 

 

Anthony gets a new(er) laptop part 2

Just as I said that I would be back with part 2 here it is.  I was really impressed with the fact that the Lenovo x201 is vewy, vewy quiet, just like it’s huntin’ wabbit. At the same time ol’ faithful has a fan that can get annoying sometimes. Even though it puts me to sleep. Much to my surprise just once the lifebook is quiet as well. Now this may have to do with the fact that both laptops are on a table and its about sixty degrees Fahrenheit in my room,  so plenty of cool air.

Makes me wanna punch old man winter right in the face!  Pow! right in the kisser!

I digress of course, I was just so pressed to get a new laptop. So pressed in fact that I went all the way home from across town and then on to Microcenter we go.  I made it there about half an hour before the store was to close and I was about business.  After perusing a few laptops that caught my eye and making fun of some of them I was even more determined to get what I came here for.  One of the associates was busy with another customer and he told me he would just be a few minutes and I really didn’t mind that at all.

Because like I said…I was having fun with insulting other laptops

After a little while the guy is done with the other gullible person I mean customer and so  I asked him for what I wanted a Lenovo x201 to which he replied: Oh, the i5? and I was like yeah.  So he went and got it for me.  I was quite excited at the time and looked at some of the other laptops from Lenovo that were there one of them being the Idea Yoga and I thought it was dumb especially for the price.  Then I looked at one that didn’t seem so bad, it was the Thinkpad Edge E545. Pretty decent specs but was about $150.00 more than I was to pay plus it had some weight to it. Not something I would want to lug around all the time, especially since with the lifebook I had been doing that for several years already.

I aint got time fo’ dat no mo’.

Speaking of being done with something: I am done with this post.  There may be a part 3 or there might not be who knows?  I sure don’t.

 

Anthony gets a new(er) laptop Part 1

Recently I got a new(er) laptop. I say newer because its not exactly new. In fact, it came out in 2010. Still, it is quite a bit more updated than my Fujitsu Lifebook 4215 from 2006 is.

Well duh!!

For one, it has an Intel Core i5 CPU 2.53 GHz in it, which is a far cry from Core2duo 1.83 GHz. I also currently have installed 4 GB of RAM, and while it is the upper limit for my Lifebook, it only represents half of what can be installed on this laptop.  I also have the option of putting in an SSD which from what I hear would speed things up a whole lot.

Not bad eh?

my Lifebook

The new laptop (to me) is the Lenovo x201. Immediately what I noticed is that it is considerably lighter than the lifebook, which is a convertible laptop. This means that it can be used as a tablet if I so desire although I tend to only use that function in GIMP.

I decided on the x201 partly because of its small size as I commented on above. I just picked them both up at the same time and I could tell the difference in weight. As it turns out, it over a pound difference between them. Which doesn’t sound like much but it really is.

🙂

The aspect ratio of the lifebook is 4:3 whereas the x201 is 16:10, so one is taller than the other. Can you guess which one? The lifebook has a 1024×768 resolution while the x201 has 1200×800. To compare the two in that regard well they are quite different. One having what I consider a warmer yellow glow to the screen while the x201 is whiter and brighter.

To be honest, I much prefer the Lifebook. It does have a nice square screen where the other one is rectangular, its wider but shorter as well. I guess it will take time to get used to it. I tell ya. what…I’ll turn off the light and see if it makes a difference for there is a yellow glow from the light above.

Nope not a difference, cause this ain’t a blockbuster video!

You know how you get started writing about something and you realize its a whole lot, and then you decide to just split into smaller parts?  Well that just happened.  So be on the look out for part 2 its coming up soon.

 

 

2013 in review for me

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 33,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 12 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

A tale of two laptops

As I was watching the Linux Action Show it was brought to my attention that there was a laptop that was actually endorsed by the Free Software Foundation called the GluglugX60.

Initially, I was quite excited about it but then I heard about the specs.  Those specs turned out to be not much different than my laptop.  

1. Roughly 12′ screen, but the GlugLug’s screen doesn’t rotate like my Fujitsu T4215 does.   The resolution (1024X768) is the same and to be honest it’s not as horrible as some will lead you to believe in my opinion.  In fact it suits my purposes quite well.

2.  The RAM is limited to 3 GB which indicates a 32-bit system which again isn’t a problem for me since that is what I am used to already.

3. I could care less about the hard drive as I already got one with 500 GB of space but the option of 128 GB SSD sounds cool.

4. Graphics; Intel GMA 950

5. CPU: This could be any of three  whereas I know for a fact that I have Intel Core 2 Duo rather than having to guess.

6. Battery life: This is where the GlugLug does have me beat.  I comes with a 5200 mAh 8-cell battery, that definately beats my 4400 mAh battery.   Although I could get an extra battery to put in my hot swappable slot that can also be used for Optical drives or another hard drive.

7. Cost:  I picked up two Fujitsu Lifebook 4215’s from Ebay for $227.00 which included shipping and handling.   Obviously you can see that you can get two of these laptops for LESS than the price of the GlugLug.

So while I am glad that there is a laptop that Richard Stallman can finally upgrade to, this one just isn’t for me.

Related articles

• Latest FSF-certified laptop is a blast from the past (geek.com)

Will Anthony get a new theme for his post?

A few days ago I came across a pretty cool blog, the writer of which thought it was going to be boring.

The jokes on him because it wasn’t

Like I said it was anything but boring, one reason is that I really, really liked the theme that he used.   Another is that I could understand what he went through.  This was true since I also had a machine set up with both Windows 7 and Linux and somehow, someway, some shape, some form…I managed to mess up the Windows 7 partition.

Hey, It can happen!!

As it turns out it didn’t hurt me any, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Why?  Because it made me use Linux full-time for everything I needed.  Also, my data was safe and still accessible thanks to the way that Linux is.  I was go glad to have Ubuntu 10.10 dual-booted with Windows 7.  Now, before you go and start start downloading Ubuntu 10.10 please be aware that it is no longer supported.

I digress

I mentioned above about a new theme, I had considered the idea for a while and just didn’t put it into action.  Now, I am reconsidering the idea and will likely forget about it again.

Namely me

 

Related articles

• Learn Linux: The What, The Why and The How for the Linux Beginner (udemy.com)
• Linux – The Most Underused And Under appreciated OS (techublog.wordpress.com)
• Get repositories for unsupported Ubuntu versions (odysseasnotepad.wordpress.com)

Another great Linux Magazine!

So a few weeks ago I was listening to the tuxradar podcast when I heard something that was rather surprising to me.  You see, I had been listening to this particular episode when it was announced that several of those normally on it would be quitting.

Really though?

I was a bit upset about it as I had been listening to the podcast for several years and it just seemed like another one bit the dust. This was sad for me because Linux isn’t talked about nearly as much as Windows and Mac is, and that just just minimizes how awesome it i.

So you can imagine how I feel several weeks later when I come across  what was appropriately called Linux Voice magazine.  I was even happier when I found out would involve the very ones I was used to hearing from as I had found them to be absolutely hilarious!

Talk about a lovely day!

Here’s what they had to say on November 15,2013:

“We are the majority of the former editorial team at Linux Format magazine:Andrew Gregory, Mike Saunders and Ben Everard. Together we have written thousands of pages over many years of the magazine, and we’ve loved serving the awesome Free Software community. You may also know us from the TuxRadar podcast, which we enjoyed doing over the years.

But recently we have all quit, because we want to make a better, more community-focused magazine. This magazine will be called Linux Voice.

Hmm, I think you wanna hear it from there own mouths:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9TnkKG2cBE

Drumroll please

Did you get that? They didn’t leave for corporate interests, they left because they wanted to focus MORE on the community.  I am very impressed by that.  I am also look forward to another Linux magazine being available for sale real soon.

So let’s give these guys the support they deserve and I am confident they will stand and deliver more info on Linux than ever before.

Oh and yes I used their logo on this post.  But no worries! Unlike a certain company (Canonical) I don’t have to worry about them sending me a blah blah blah trademark infringement letter about it later.

For more information see:

http://www.linuxvoice.com