This has taken awhile and I must apologize for that. I had no comments for this blog entry but that wont keep me from sharing some info on ubuntu for you guys. First of all the reason I hadnt updated this sooner is because I have been insatiably busy as of late with work, school, and other work. Not to mention other various faculties, which as of right now require attending to but I just dont feel like getting them done. Besides i'd rather talk about my new working OS!

I initially installed Ubuntu a few weeks ago. I didnt get much done though, besides get my internet connection up and running. Between then and now I have done a few things in order to better facilitate the inevitable switch. First thing was of course to dip my hands into Ubuntu. To best describe my experience is to say that it is refreshingly new, and quite fast as well. While there were the options of trying out Xubuntu and Kubuntu, the original best served my interests and is what I have stuck with. Right now im running Feisty Fawn (version 7.04) over the latest release, which is Gutsy Gibbon (7.10). The reason for this is im waiting for some bugs to be sorted out before upgrading, and besides Feisty Fawn runs just fine.

Ubuntu is fast. Faster than any windows OS i've run, whether it be the boot or program launch. I can have a program up within 20 seconds of pressing my power button which is damn nice. In Vista this usually exceeded the 40 second mark, and sometimes well into the minute plus mark. For those of you who intend on being productive with your computer then Ubuntu is the definite choice. Also very noticeable and nice is the customization of tool bars and schemes. Unlike Vista, or any other windows, it is easy to change the colors of your program bars, and the opacity. You can also align them wherever you'd like, you have two but more can be added or taken away, the top, bottom, left or right. Desktop backgrounds are still here and still do what they do best, spice up your drab desktop. All of this is of course rather superficial but its important to know that you can define your experience however you'd like. With the addition of Compiz and Beryl, two pieces of customization software, the sky really does become the limit.

Ubuntu works quite different from windows, and you feel you are unable to devote the time to learning how to use it then stay away. It is not nearly the pick-up-and-use fest that windows is, mainly because of its stability. Users are expected to use terminal commands for certain programs and to check functions within the computer. The terminal is much like the dos prompt, only far more comprehensive. You can use it to see any variety of system tasks or processes, but most amazingly it can be used for automatic updating, setting up keys (which allow certain third party programs to update automatically), installing apps, and is the best way of getting the most out of the OS. There is a GUI that operates similar to it, but when you can do all the GUI does quicker with the terminal, and far more specified, you may just finding yourself loading a terminal window immediately upon startup.

Ubuntu comes preinstalled with a lovely package OpenOffice.org. OpenOffice.org is essentially what Word, Excel, Access, and Powerpoint is, plus more, it can even save as the file types that are used by the previous programs, and open all of their file formats. Best part is its free, and is not much different from those programs. Think of it as Linux's answer to Micrsoft Office, and it is worth getting into. Evolutions acts as the Outlook equivalant, but I have yet to use it. And you have Firefox preinstalled, to ensure you can get online and in the classiest way possible. Seriously if you are still stuck on Internet Explorer, change, there are two better browsers out there, Opera and Firefox, and both dont send unneeded information to Microsoft.

So thus far I have had nothing but good to say of Ubuntu but I have had some problems, things of which are fixable. Upon loading Ubuntu I noticed it didnt recognize my linksys wireless router, and setting it up was pretty frustrating. After messing with it for some time I can honestly say I have got the process of getting it up and running completely down. I have also had problems getting Ubuntu to recognize my Creative Labs Audigy 2 Value, it keeps on telling me its the LS version. No it isnt. I ended up doing a workaround for this problem but now I am experiencing some problems with sound playback. No doubt it is just my sound card, although I cannot prove this yet because I have not yet bought my new one so I cant resolve this one as of now. Lastly is my problems with my ATI Radeon X1950, it simply is not recognized and it causes problems with Wine (a windows emulator), another problem that requires resolution.

The good news is that potentially all of these problems can be resolved and locating fixes is good learning experiences. If there is one thing that has made me enjoy using Ubuntu is how personal it can be to work with it. I learn much about what doesnt work and why it doesnt work, and discovering work arounds is great because you actually feel as if you are tailoring the OS to your specific needs. Something working with windows completely lacks. The best part is that this experience is completely free, and very rewarding.

So with that i will include the first part of this series and I plan on going in-depth on getting the linksys wireless router to work on Ubuntu, wusb54gv4 for those of you who are wondering, and eventually integrating some wine walk-throughs and info so you can get to know how to run windows apps in Ubuntu. THe skies the limit with this OS it seems, you just need to be prepared to get yourself there!

Long have I been a Windows user. Long have I dealt with blue screens of death, poor performance, excessive services running in the background, and Microsoft attepting to steal my information. It's been fun Windows but im moving on to bigger and better things. I found Ubuntu, and im now becoming a Linux user.

I blame it all on Vista. If ever I have found the crappiest Microsoft product it would be Vista. Running a Pentium D with 2gigs of ram makes me on the middle echelon of computers. Adding my ATI X1950 Pro to the equation makes my computer closer to the upper echelon but still rather modest in comparison to the quad cores and 4 gigabyte wonders of the world. In all technicalities my computer should have run Vista like a breeze. Minute long startup's with no other programs running say otherwise. Eventually I found out that Vista runs 135+ services in the background, 1-3-5. That is just stupid. Makes me feel like slamming my head against the computer in frustration. Eventually I found out how to close down services and made startup a smoother process. Unfortunately the straw had begun to break and what broke it was finding OpenOffice.org. Look it up and love it. It's a free alternative to Word, Powerpoint, Excel, and Access. OpenOffice saves in its own propietary file format and in any of the windows formats, its incredibly nice and works just as well, if not better, than any version of Word or Powerpoint you've used. Just as well free makes it incredibly attractive. Breath of fresh air it is, let me just tell you that.

So with my foray with OpenOffice I decided to look into the OS it came bundled with, Ubuntu. Ubuntu is effectively this generations only real competitor with Vista, anything Apple releases doesnt count because it doesnt even bother to offer any way of running critical windows apps that have unnecessarily become the standard. Ubuntu is linux and based off the debian-architecture, I hope that is right, and im not even quite sure what that means. All that matters is that Ubuntu is a worthy alternative and basically works right off of the install. There will be some quirks, as I have found with my wireless, sound, and video card, but for those who already understand windows and are quite sick and tired of Microsoft charging them for their mistakes Ubuntu will seem just natural. Sure you'll spend time learning the OS and coming to grips with problems and errors, but the great thing is that you'll do it for free and come away with knowledge of this joyously crafted and splendid OS. Just the fact tht it is available to you simply to experiment with is just amazing.

Now I am unable to give any real hard objective validity to using Ubuntu right now, besides it being something thats not windows and highly intuitive, but that is my goal having installed it. I'd like to give you all some insight into what I go through with Ubuntu and why I feel it is worth it at the very least, and introduce some of the splendid apps you will find if you so decide to either make the switch or just give it a dual boot with your favorite windows OS.

But a word is timeless in meaning. Or any collection of words. I find the very methodology and delivery of said words to be of gargantuan importance. Moreso the tone, feeling, and various other independant functions that may precede or succede a word. It could be even be a simultaneous action to the saying of the word or words. The reason I say this now is because I just heard a collection of words from my girlfriend whom I havent seen in awhile now. Well there is some explaining to do there.

She was my girlfriend for over two years. And then she moved to college. Arriving at college, after a few months, she left me and decided to pursue whatever she did over there. Only just recently has she come back to me, just about a week ago actually. But we seemed to take things off rather well. She wanted things to go back the way they were, and I, seeing nothing wrong with it, felt that perhaps I should give her a second chance. All things considered I still had feelings for her, and her for me. Tonite though she stated something to me that left me somewhat aghast and worried.

We got very flirty on the phone tonite as we discussed seeing each other soon again, and the various, activities, we will partake in as soon as she comes back to see me for a week or two. But she stated something in a very wry way that has made me somewhat cautious and apprehensive towards her.

It was something along the lines of her not being surprised by anything i'd show her, of course meant on an erotic scale. It's strange because while we were together she never said anything like this. Just as well she always felt there was some kind of uniqueness to how we were, well in the sack. And now this. It sounded almost as if she had some kind of elaborate experience that made her understand new avenues of sexual dimensions, whatever the hell that means. It just made me somewhat nauseous when I heard it.

Now its perfectly understandable that she is going to seek some new enjoyment when I wasnt around, for a year and a half we had parted our separate ways. Its just the way she said it, and her odd giggle afterwards that has left me with an indelible disgust. Something just didnt sound right about it. To be perfectly honest im now very interested to find out what she did in college while we were not together. And considering she's made it incredibly explicit that when she see's me we'll be spending plenty of time reacquainting ourselves with each others bodies I am even moreso in need of getting down to the nitty gritty.

Because quite honestly, no matter how powerful our feelings our for each other, if I find out she's been performing certain things that I wouldnt be too partial with then I dont think I want to be with her. After all I have only been with one person since she left and that never even arose into anything quite as scandalous as her tone of words implied. Well we shall see how things work out.