Hello, all.

I think I'm finally going to take the plunge...

I've been using Uniz/Linux off and on for about 15 years now. I know my way around enough to troubleshoot the software that I implement professionally and do all sorts of odd things, but I've never made it my primary box. I've always fallen back on a Windows box for my general purpose web browsing and email.

Well, all that is changing right now. I have some relatives coming to live with me for several months - they've sold their house and are in the process of buying a new one, but will be living with us until the new sale is complete. Their PC is way past its prime - still running Windows ME and not suitable for futher upgrade.

Meanwhile, I have an adequate desktop for basic purposes. It is a 900MHz Athlon currently running WinXP. No, it isn't a speed demon but for email, web browsing, and the like it is perfectly fine. I'm going to rebuild this for my guests.

I also had an old 300MHx Pentium that has been gathering dust. This is a Win95 vintage machine with a no-name GPU and 192 MB of Ram. What the heck, I decided, and downloaded the lastest Debian. It wasn't the smoothest install because the cdrom wasn't supported, but I was able to install from floppy/network and get a basic text-only Debian system running.

A little work with apt-get got me X, and then I needed to iterate by hand a few times to get a reasonable config for X. IceWM seems to be a nice window manager thatr is preety lightweight.

Next I got Firefox and Thunderbird running. The neat thing was I was able to bring over all the profile info from windows and it came up just fine.

My current challenge is getting YahooPops! running. Then I need to get OpenOffice. Finally, getting some typical browser plugins like flash and acrobat should complete my box.

Hi Everybody!

I have a Canon PowerShot S20. It is a nice 3+ megapixel camera. It has served me well. My Uncle recently upgraded, however, and gave me his Canon PowerShot S45, a much improved camera.

Here is the deal. I'd like to swap my S20 for a smaller form factor camera, something that I can carry in my pocket virtually all the time. I'm willing to sacrifice resolution.

Anyone interested?

Thanks,
Mike

Check out the replies to eglamkowski's recent journal entry Exploding Kibo! I can confirm through independent means that Actual Kibo is indeed the actual Kibo!

If you know who Kibo is, then congratulations. You were probably on the net before the dawn of perpetual September!

I just saw this http://www.theworldforum.org/story/2005/3/23/62312/6533 story about Bobby Fischer. The story was written by a Canadian who also posted this editorial comment:

I've always thought it a travesty that Bobby Fisher had to go into hiding just because he wanted to play chess in a tournament held, unfortunately, in Yugoslavia during the UN embargo.

Another self-identified Canadian followed with this comment:

Thank goodness Iceland is a country with brains. I just can't understand the waste of time and money this case must impose on the US court system. I think whoever is persuing and persisting with this case has lost perspective.

I posted a followup that expresses my feelings. It was my first time using the site, and I didn't intentionally post it anonymously.

The world gets annoyed when the United States uses force against evil. The world wants the US to use non-violent means like embargos. But then they undermine the US when it attempts to enforce the embargos.

Lets keep this clear. Yugoslavia was committing genocide. The president of Yugoslavia at the time is on trial at the ICJ.

Not to mention that Bobby Fischer has made racist public statements.

This is not some poor victim. If I was a citizen of Iceland I'd be embarressed.

Bastards.

I need an online fax service for light use. I was wondering if anyone here had experiences and opinions.

I first looked at eFax and j2. I think they are actually the same company. Since I want to get a NYC number, I would need their paid services. That would mean between $13 and $15 a month in basic subscription fees plus $0.10 a page for outbound faxes and free unlimited inbound faxes. My usage of the system would be almost entirely inbound.

This struck me as a little more expensive than it had to be. I looked a little further and found innoport. For $8 per month subscription, they offer faxes and voicemail delivered via email. Inbound minutes are free for the first 200, then $0.05 per minute after that. Outbound faxes are $0.09 per page. I think that this is a much more economical solution, considering that this service will be lightly used.

Has anyone used these services before? Does anyone have another service to suggest?

Hello, all. I think some of you have done similar things, so I'm asking here rather than combing through the net.

Next weekend I'm driving from New York to Orlando, Florida. In order to keep my two-year-old entertained, we borrowed a portable DVD player.

Is there an easy way to take some of his favorite DVDs, like his Elmo's Greatest Hits, and burn a VCD copy of only the video itself. I'd like to be able to just put it in and have it play, not have to navigate through menus, previews, or the FBI warning. I don't have a DVD burner and I'd rather not buy one right now.

Also, is there a way to take some other media, like the Laurie Berkner music videos available from Noggin.com in quicktime and windows media formats, and burn those as VCDs?

Thanks,
Mike

My son Joe, 21 months old, loves the vacuum. I don't know why, but he does. So my wife found a toy wet/dry vac at Toys 'R Us. If is one of his favorite Christmas presents.

It is pretty cheaply made, however. Late Christmas day it stopped working. I changed the batteries but that didn't help.

I figured it was most likely a broken wire or switch. So yesterday morning I got out a screwdriver and a voltmeter and carefully dissasembled it. I carefully checked the switch and the wiring, and finally found that the motor driven fan was sticking against the side of its enclosure. A few minutes later I had it fixed and reassembled, much to Joe's delight.

This morning I was assembling another toy. I didn't notice that Joe had taken some tools from my tool box. I heard him playing and decided to see what he was doing. He had the screwdriver and the voltmeter out, and the vacuum on its side, pretending to open it up with the screwdriver. He looked up at me and said "Daddy, I'm fixing it!"

sniff sniff. He was fixing it, just like Daddy.

The "anybody but Bush" (hence the abB)crowd makes about as much sense as the "Clinton murdered Vince Foster" crowd.

For instance, abB frequently attribute a degree of cunning, subterfuge, and underhandedness to Bush that would impress Stalin. However, they also complain that we did not find the promised WMDs in Iraq. Bush used Iraq's WMD programs and Iraq; failure to comply with UN rules designed to prevent the development of WMD programs as part of the justification for war. Now we know that Iraq's WMD programs were just a tiny fraction of what Bush led us to believe. The abB crowd tells us that Bush lied about Iraq's WMD programs.

These two ideas just don't mesh. The outcome that we've actually seen does not support the thesis that 1) Bush lied or 2) that Bush is a cloak and dagger operator.

First, why would Bush lie about WMDs. He could have avoided most of the WMD argument and focued in other things, such as human rights, flaunting the UN, attempting to murder a US president, and connections to terrorism, of which Saddam plenty. (I know that Saddam did not sit down and plan 9/11 with Osama over tea. He still offered plenty of support to terrorism.) He could have had jsut as many Americans convinced of the neccessity to go to war with just these points. The WMD argument would never have been made if it was a lie, because it was a lie that would be exposed.

Second, if Bush is such a smooth operator, why wouldn't he have planted some WMDs. We've got plenty of them. A few barrels here and there and no one would be arguing about this now.

The only argument that fits the facts is that Bush, based on the information he had, in good faith believed that there were WMDs in Iraq. The fact that the information was faulty, or at least exagerated by orders of magnitude, is not evidence of the evilness of Bush.

You are free to argue apects of Bush's policies. The fact that he is not omniscient is not a reasonable grudge to hold against him.

In true Stalin fashion, it is time for a purge!

I'm dropping people from my friends list. No, I don't consider you an enemy. I use my friends list to track journals I want to read. Either you don't write a journal very often or I'm not interested in what you have to write about.

Off to the gulag archipelago with you!

This little article is priceless!

Attention, public: mothers must be judged as much as possible. Here's how.

"That's not tuna you're eating, is it? Did you know that tuna is composed entirely of mercury? Um, so, do you care about your unborn child?"

"Did you just order a turkey sandwich? Ever heard of a bacterium called listeria? Well, you better find out all about it, missy, because from now until that poor innocent baby is born, your thoughtless snacking can kill. No more cold cuts for you. Or brie. Forget brie. Don't even think about goat cheese. If you care about anything except yourself. And I hope that's decaffeinated tea you're drinking."

"Listeria? I ate a salami sandwich every day and you turned out fine. Don't be an idiot. Eat this prosciutto while I stand here and watch you. Eat it eat it eat it. Your child needs protein. Jerk."

"Did you just take a sip of your husband's beer? I happen to have in my hands twelve separate studies that show that as little as two grams of alcohol a month can cause your child's brain to resemble, in size and personality, a walnut. Why do you want your baby to be walnut-brained? And vanilla extract counts, so hand over that cookie."

"Your baby needs you to relax, so I've mixed you a special vitamin-packed Manhattan. Don't talk to me about studies--when I had my kids, I drank Johnny Walker every day and smoked unfiltereds while I drove with the seatbelt off. And most of them lived, am I right? I mean, I don't want to call you a gutless whore, but come on."

"You're only six months pregnant? Wow. I thought you were, like, more pregnant. I only gained 11 pounds with my kids. Wow. Um. Wow."

"Have you gained enough? You know, they're now discovering that you need to gain at least 35 pounds, or your child will be an asshole."

"You're getting an epidural, I assume. You know you'll never be able to handle the indescribably blinding pain. You're not going to try to prove something with that whole natural-childbirth hoo-ha, I hope. Please tell me you're not going to prove something and that you'll just take the nice drugs the nice doctors give you. What's that? Oh, sweet Christ, what's a 'midwife'?"

"Of course it's your choice, but I've read some alarming statistics on children whose mothers had epidurals. It seems they're 89% more unloved, and 116% less happy for the rest of their lives. I've already emailed the studies to you. But I guess if a little pain is more important to you than your child's happiness, you have to factor that in."

"You're only nursing for the first few weeks, right? After that it's more about you trying to prove something, you know. Bottles are easier. Look at him--he's got no idea what to do with those tits you keep shoving at his face. Are you trying to turn him into a gay?"

"Nursing is difficult, you say? I have no idea what you could mean. Mastitis? I think I remember having that. About seven times or so. Once I had a 106 fever, but I kept nursing little Dakota, no matter what. Did I tell you about when I was in that accident, and I was pinned under a tractor-trailer, and I had the paramedics bring me my baby so that I could nurse her as they sawed off my leg? Well, I mean, what choice did I have?"

"I hope your baby is sleeping in bed with you. Do you know what happens if she doesn't? She stares all night at the bars of her cold, dank crib, trembling in fear and wondering why her mummy and daddy hate her so much that they'd put her in prison."

"You've got that poor little thing in the bed with you? Are you trying to kill him?"

"Your baby cries all the time? Obviously you're doing something wrong."

"Your baby never cries? You got lucky. When your first child is easy, studies have shown that the second child is 99% more likely to drive you clinically insane with his ceaseless shrieking. So wipe that smile off your face. Yeah, that's right."

"Are you still letting that child fall asleep while she's feeding? You know that you're being selfish, lazy, and possibly criminal in your neglect of her sleep training. You need to leave her alone and let her cry it out. Right now."

"What do you mean, 'sleep training'? You're not reading that Ferber book, I hope. I've read that if you let your child cry for more than 2.7 minutes, he'll only learn that you hate him. You hate him, and want to sell him. To Dr. Ferber. Who, incidentally, you know what I heard about him? He eats babies. I'm just saying."

"Don't you think it's a little selfish, being a stay-at-home mother? It's not like he even knows who you are at this point. Or is it that you like staying in your pajamas all day and not showering? So your kid is an excuse, is what you're saying? Nice."

"You're going back to work? I see. So you value your career more than your child, whom you're abandoning so that he can be raised by strangers. Well, bully for you."

"Lighten up--a little TV is good for kids. That's why, when I was babysitting, I let him stay up late with me and watch some Cinemax. He learned some great new words!"

"You let your son watch 'Sesame Street'? Huh. So I guess you're fine with it if your kid lives in a fantasy world, where muppets bathe with each other and the number 8 tangos with the letter H. Incidentally, your cavalier parenting just caused his SAT scores to plummet 104 points. Bravo."

Back in late February, I was hired by a Silicon Valley startup to do "Professional Services" for their clients in and around Manhattan. My official office was to be a spare room in my house, and I would be spending at least 50% of my time at client sites. Without regular access to a landline, I was going to need a reliable cell phone.

I had been using an AT&T TDMA phone. AT&T's service was generally pretty good, but the cells in my area tended to get saturated a little more often than I was happy with. I live very close to two major highways, and whenever they would back up (seemingly every rush hour) it was difficult to make or recieve a call.

I knew that in Manhattan I'd have good coverage from any carrier. When I needed to be at the corporate office, I figured that the stretch between San Francisco and San Jose probably had good coverage too. So I was mostly interested in coverage at my home.

I decided to give T-Mobile a try. I went to my local dealer and he let me borrow a phone. (He took a credit card imprint in case I never came back.) I drove around the neighborhood and evaluated signal strength and clarity by dialing customer service at 611. It seemed very promising.

I went back with a copy of my AT&T bill. I signed the contract and switched my number from AT&T to T-Mobile. I selected a $99 Samsung E105 flip phone with a $100 rebate. I really loved my Nokia 8260, and the dealer agreed that Nokia seemed to have the most usable software, but he wasn't selling a similar sized Nokia phone for T-Mobile. He told me that he had gotten complaints from customers about software bugs, so he stopped carrying that model.

I chose a $59 plan with 1000 weekday minutes, free nights and weekends, nationwide free roaming and free long distance. It took about 24 hours for the number to be switched from AT&T.

The next week I started my new job. The client had no space for me to work. In addition the client's firewall doesn't let me get to my company's network via VPN. I quickly signed up for T-Mobile HotSpot service. There is a Starbucks in the building. Since I was a T-Mobile customer, I only have to pay $20 per month. I spend several hours each day at a table in Starbucks.

There are never fewer than four or five people working there at any given time during a normal workday. In fact, I once laughed out loud when a guy working at the table next to me told someone in a cellphone conversation that he is in his midtown office. He turned to me and smiled as he further explained to the other party that it isn't a private office, he shares space.

Anyway, the first bill came, and I used less than the 1000 minutes I was allotted. I went online to adjust my plan, and I discovered that there is currently a promotion. By agreeing to a "new" year of service, I got the same 1000 minute plan for $39. In other words, I extended my contract for one month and a0 now saving $240.

My company provides a $100 monthly "technology" allowance for remote workers. It can be applied to cell phone, blackberry, broadband, etc. Now I have a cell phone with 1000 minutes plus free nights and weekends for $39, a wireless broadband account with a hotspot seemingly on every block in the business districts of manhattan for $19, and an overpriced but reliable cable modem for $49. After subtracting the $100 allowance and adding in taxes and fees I get all those things for less than $25 a month. Pretty Sweet!

My experience with T-Mobile has been great. I expect that it is pretty universally good in major urban and suburban areas. My wife has a Verizon phone for use on camping trips. I don't expect the T-Mobile phone to work off the beaten track. Their prices seem excellent. The HotSpot service, at $20 per month, is too much for the casual user. The person with a legit business need can certainly justify it, however.

The bottom line: definitely consider using T-Mobile unless you need to be in outer suburbs and rural areas a lot. Before getting yourself caught in a bad contract, however, borrow a phone from a dealer and test the areas where you'll most often be.

In my previous journal I discussed my plans to buy an aquarium for my son's first birthday. I requested some advice from the slashdot community. I'm very grateful for all the information I recieved. Here is an update.

I looked on ebay, but due to the difficulty shipping an aquarium it didn't make sense to go that route. Two Sundays ago (January 25th) I checked several local pet supply stores. One was "Petco", a national chain. The second was "Pet Supplies Plus", a smaller chain. The third was a local shop called "Billy B's Aquarium Center".

I had been hoping to set up a nice aquarium for about $500 total. I was also hoping to get something about 40 or 50 gallons. I quickly realized that a 50 gallon aquarium would push me over budget. "Billy B" had a nice 29 gallon set for about $180. It included the tank, a nice stand, a hood with flourescent light, a submersible heater, and a Whisper 30 power filter. Gravel was not included. I purchased a dark blue gravel, since most fish show their color better with a dark gravel.

I had kept several aquariums 15 or 20 years ago, and I was a little suprised to see a new size - 29 gallon - when there was already a fairly standard 30 gallon size. It turns out that the 29 is a taller variation of the 20L (L for long - there is also a 20 High size) standard size. The 29 can use the same hood, stand, and other accessories as the 20L - which makes the accessories for both a little cheaper.

I always make the assumption that any accessory included in a package is being pushed to the limits of its effectiveness. For instance, the power filter and heater were both rated for aquariums up to 30 gallons. I was at the edge of their capabilites, while I would normally prefer to be in the middle of their range. I added an inexpensive undergravel filter and a second submersible heater. Now I had plenty of capacity.

I set the system up and let it run overnight. I checked it several time until I was certain it was not leaking and it was maintaining a stable temperature. I once lost a tank full of fish because it was located against an outside wall, and the winter temperature variation was too much for the heater to overcome. Stable temperature is absolutely vital.

The following day I returned to "Billy B" and purchased 3 Rosey Barbs Barbus conchonius. I also purchased several artificial plants and a sunken log. The plants were placed in the back corners to hide the lift tubes for the undergravel filter. The sunken log was placed in the center foreground. The barbs are marvellously active, bright orange-red fish.

I only purchased three to give the aquarium a chance to cycle. The fish excrete ammonia into the water, which eventually can develope into a toxic concentration. However, as the ammonia levels rise, a colony of bacteria will develop which converts the ammonia to Nitrite. Nitrite is also toxic, but a second colony of bacteria will convert Nitrite to Nitrate. Nitrate is relatively harmless to fish, and can be controlled by frequent small water changes. A new aquarium needs an opportunity to develop these bacteria colonies, and establish the nitrogen cycle, before it can support more than a small number of fish. This process can frequently take 6 to 8 weeks.

I've been checking the Ammonia and Nitrite levels on a daily basis since day one. The Ammonia level never rose as high as I was expecting, going as high as 0.3 or 0.4 ppm before dropping under 0.25 ppm. The Nitrite level never rose beyond 0.05 ppm. This happened much more quickly than I expected (less than ten days, not 6 weeks). My best guess is that the suggestion to only start with three fish was meant for 10 gallon tanks. In my larger tank with an under-gravel filter the bacteria were able to start to establish themselves without the overall ammonia levels rising precipitously.

I wouldn't bet, however, that the tank is fully cycled. I went out on Wednesday (February 4) and purchased an additional three Rosey Barbs. Rosey Barbs are happiest in a community of 5 or 6 so I was planning on adding eventually anyway. I also purchased a few live Anubius barteri var. nana plants to provide additonal cover and do well in weak light.

While I'm on the topic of live plants in an aquarium, my research has indicated that plants can be more difficult to keep than fish, and they are not neccessarily beneficial to an aquarium. In order to thrive, most plants require much more light than a normal aquarium hood provides. Most plants do not add any significant amount of oxygen to the water. In short, beginners shouldn't bother trying to keep more than a few hardy specimens that do well in subdued light.

After a few days with 6 Rosey Barbs, the ammonia and nitrite levels are still low. If they're still low after a week I'll add a few more fish. I'd like to have the tank fully stocked by March 15th.

IIRC, someone in our circle keeps fish as a hobby. I need some advice on getting an aquarium for my son's first birthday. (He loves looking at fish.)

As a youngster I kept fish myself. I had several tanks in 10-20-30 gallon sizes, so I have some idea what I'm doing. But it has been almost 20 years.

My first question is this - I've never kept a salt water aquarium. How is it different than keeping a fresh water aquarium?

Second, I was planning on getting something about 50 gallons in size. What equipment should I look for? What filters, heater, etc?

What kind of fish should I look for that will have lots of color? I was thinking of using neon and cardinal tetras to anchor my collection. I love their colors and their schooling behaviour. Any other suggestions?

Thanks
RevMike

The Holy Empire of The Five Families is a small, economically powerful nation, renowned for its complete lack of prisons. Its hard-working population of 9 million are either ruled by a small, efficient government or a conglomerate of multinational corporations; it's difficult to tell which.

There is no government in the normal sense the word; however, a small group of community-minded, pro-business individuals is effectively ruled by the Department of Commerce, with areas such as Religion & Spirituality and Law & Order receiving almost no funds by comparison. Income tax is unheard of. A powerhouse of a private sector is led by the Beef-Based Agriculture, Basket Weaving, and Information Technology industries.

Elections have been outlawed. Crime is a serious problem, probably because of the country's utter lack of prisons. The Five Families's national animal is the rat, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its currency is the box of rigatoni.

As Di Capo Di Tutti Capi, I'd like to interest all you in the wide variety of services my nation can offer. You may not need these services now, but I have a feeling you'll want them soon.

• Debt Collection
• Trash Disposal
• Restraunt Supplies and Linens
• Fire Insurance
• Banking
• Management Consulting
• Conflict Resolution
• And more...

Our goal is to "Make problems disappear."

Please, give me or one of my underbosses a call. Let us examine your particular situation. Then we'll make you an offer I'm sure you won't want to refuse.