Fintan Ramblings

This has been in my draft file,so i have finally got round to finishing this post.

Clicking on picture gives you a bigger picture with more detail.

This is the desktop I see when I first switch the computer on

On top left is a facebook feeds

words next to Jack Nicholson is quote of the day which changes daily.

I don’t need to tell you what a calendar and a clock does do I ?

As you see here I am reading my gmail using Mutt which is the best mail client in

my opinion. N stand for new mail and D is to delete which I always delete anything from

RNID

Top left is my facebook feeds which Mathew is taking the piss. I upgraded Ubuntu to Hardy Heron and for some reason colours got set to 256  instead of 16.million which of course I had fixed.

In this picture I am viewing my RSS feeds using Newsbeuter

After i highlighted and pressed enter to read post using newsbeuter in this case

I am reading the GOD blog.

Reading See Hear forum this way  as I find  the forum in ghastly colour

I will post more later on , as Newsbeuter and Mutt deserve a post of its own

4 of us run a Ryedale lug (Linux User Group) to be honest al does most of the running of it our excuse is that he lives near the community centre.
You can see their mug shots on here http://www.ryedale.lug.org.uk/memb.html
We all do play our part running the website and mailing list etc.
I look after the mailing list of Scarborough lug http://www.scarborough.lug.org.uk
We used to go to Scarborough lug every month but we got fed up of coming home late takes some of us 40 minute drive so we set up a local one.

So if your interested in trying out Linux why not subscribe to the list. And to find a local lug nearest to you look at this site http://www.lug.org.uk/lugs/index.php

I have been building MythTV out of old computers.  For those who don’t know what MythTV is, it’s a home brew PVR (Personal Video Recorder).  It can record lots of things at once, schedule recordings from work and send messages home to be displayed on the TV (can hear my mum saying ‘get that fricking thing off’ when I left subtitles on her TV) it does more than Sky+ can do.
I built an all-in-one box but it was too noisy, so what I needed to do was get a small computer / or game consol sitting under the TV.
The other day I was browsing at the computer store mumbling to myself “I could do with one of those” when my lovely wife crept up behind me and said, “what do you need another computer/ game consol for? When you’ve already got one at home?” Later on we were shopping in another store and my wife was looking at shoes I said to her “what do you need another pair of shoes for? When you’ve already got a pair?”

I ran out the shop before she could say anything!

Around five years ago or more I installed Linux and never looked back. I got some reactions ranged from puzzled look to what an earth for? But to be honest most people didn’t know what I meant when I said “I don’t use windows”

There are good reasons why I use Linux: it just works for me. Not only that, whenever I have discussions about why my computer never gets viruses or spyware it is sometimes hard not to gloat, especially when I hear stories about Netsky and slammer worm

The great thing about being a Linux user is it kept me honest. Not in the sense that I would be using a pirated copy of windows, rather it makes sure that I understand what I am doing with my computer.
I see too many Windows users going through the motions, trying to their work done through memory hogging os alone.

As a geek I enjoy understanding how Linux and my computer work. Sadly these days computers are not only just tools they can be phising scams to relive people of millions of pounds each year and identity theft is increasing problem as well as viruses.
If I am to function in this world, whether I like it or not, I want to know for sure that my system is secure, reliable and robust. I like to know that if I wanted to or needed to, I could fix what is broken or change what really bothers me.

But when your windows box fails, your only option is reboot and hope it doesn’t happen again. If it does then re install (which takes hours) or avoid the applications that caused the problem in the first place