Well, it has been awhile since I last posted and I don’t really have an excuse except that I usually think about what I want to post and haven’t thought of a good topic. So I have some free time today to throw out a few random thoughts and goings-on in the ole life extravaganza lately.

New Computer!!

I finally updated my old reliable Hot Rod (with 4, yes 4 OSes) with a new Gigabyte Z68 motherboard, Core i5 quad core processor, 8 Gb of Corsair ram, and a Western Digital 1Tb Black 3Gbs hard drive. It took 4 days to work out the bugs in my running system but did not have to reinstall any of my Operating Systems (thank god). The old system was well debugged and had been running since 2008 with nary a squeak. The only problem is that my favorite motherboard maker (Abit) went belly up after an investment company bought them and decided to close it. That is a shame because Abit was the computer builder’s brand, completely rock solid and friendly overclocking. It took me awhile to choose a new supplier. Asus is OK, I used their stuff in the past but have been wary of quality control issues recently that they have been struggling with. I also had to look closely at Gigabyte. Seems they have a boot loop problem with some of their more popular motherboards and I needed to stay away from them. Finally I chose a Gigabyte that didn’t have the problem and have been a happy camper since. On the Gentoo Linux side this thing compiles programs faster than anything I’ve ever had. It’s actually hard to watch the text roll by in the Konsole window (KDE terminal app) it goes so fast. Win 7 64 bit, well not much faster except for encoding movies. OS X Snow Leopard is quite snappy and this hardware is very close to what (real) Macs have. OS X Lion is snappy too and one of these days I’ll figure out the OpenGl problem that plagues Lion. All the rest of my old stuff went into my server to replace Pentium D hardware and increase hard drive space.

Warmest Winter Ever!!

These has been the warmest winter we have experienced since locating to New Orleans. Not one day even close to 32 degrees or a frost. We are looking at our citrus trees (6 in number) flowering early with incredible fruit numbers. Our banana tree is only for decoration and is the most vulnerable to cold due to it’s high water content. This year we really have bananas on it!! All carefully clustered in little curving bunches. Which brings us to all the other green paraphernalia located at our little piece of NOLA heaven. It’s all growing as if we were in the Amazonian river plain. This year I never quit cutting grass. Oh, it slowed down a wee bit, but never quit growing enough to whack it back down to size (or to give me a quick 3 week siesta). Really looking forward to see what happens this year during Hurricane season (not REALLY, really). It should be interesting seeing as we have had the warmest spring eva! Hope all that junk goes to the East Coast. We need a break from all the damn catastrophes that we have endured just to reconstitute our peace of mind. You can’t live thinking the next giant calamity is roaring down the pike with another close behind as we have had in the last 8 years. I silently chucked to myself because doing so out loud would have been in terrible taste and my mother raised me right, when last summer a little Cat 1 hurricane went up east and holy god to Jesus you would have thought the Japanese Tsunami hit!! We encountered Cat4 to Cat5 winds during that ole nasty wench Katrina, and they are whining about a Cat 1? Listen, we have winds at 25 m.p.h. on a daily basis here,quit bitchin’ and get ready for some real Mother Earth monkeyshines you east coasters. For too long the rest of the country has been hit like it was Moses and Pharaoh fighting out in a WWE match. As we say in the South, “Ya’ll need some o’ dis stuff” and “Bless your hearts”-(the South’s way of cussin’ ya’ll without cussin’). Well we’ll see come June how the Prophets have foreseen events. Here’s to no sweet girls coming to see us this year 9and bad boys too).

Well, gotta go and feed the Minions. See Ya Soon.

I received a Nook Touch as a gift from my son at Christmas and I am loving it. This is to be marveled at for the simple reason that I am (was) a consummate Luddite when it came to paper vs. digital books. I like the feel of a paper book in my hands. It is something permanent that have lasted through the eons as a form that has not needed to be improved upon (which is a miracle unto itself in this fast paced life we lead today). I have a traditional library of approximately 2500 books which I have read and re-read many times. I cherish my books as the most important things in my life. They have been the vehicle for me to visit other worlds, other times, other cultures. They are the also the instrument to educate myself how human beings of varying backgrounds live this journey we call life.

So imagine being able to have all those books handy in one little device that you can carry with you at all times. Wonderful! Never will I be in a waiting room with nothing but dross scattered about that any other time I would never touch i.e. People magazine. I get bored extremely fast and my way to fight this boredom has always been to read something. Never again will I have to “settle” for what is left behind. I can settle into my chair and be content for however long it takes to complete this negative bump in my valuable time.

If you also have one of these e-readers (be it a Nook, Kindle, Sony,etc.) there is a super program to manage your e-books called Calibre. It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It handles all the diverse formats these readers have and can convert from one format to another with ease. Get it at www.calibre-ebook.com. It’s free and has so many useful tools in it that the author could have charged at least $50 for it.

My wife has become a voracious reader in recent years and after checking out the Nook Touch we went to B&N to check out the other readers they offer. She liked and bought a Nook Color mainly because it is back lit and is in color. It’s heavier than my Touch but I also am going to get a Color due to the back-lighting. It also has a web browser, email, and some other apps. That really doesn’t mean anything to me-I want a reader period, not an iPad replacement. I still will use the Touch at night before the dreams come due to it’s lighter weight. Battery life is amazing on these things so  you never have to worry about discharging at the wrong time.

Now as to the negative things about e-readers, not all books are in e-book form and many old ones never will be so there will always be a time to enjoy paper books. All the different companies have their own competing format so you have to buy from them and them only. Kind of locking you in to them, but as I pointed out before you can change the formats to suit your device. I have many .mobi e-books which is the Kindle format and have converted them to .epub which is what the Nook uses. Reminds me of the Betamax and VHS wars of old. So silly and bad for the consumer.

Well, I have to leave off of here to read my Nook. See you soon.

Just wanted to extend a “Merry Christmas” to all my far flung friends and frenenemies-(hehe) world wide. It has been a trying year all the way around-politically, financially-(when hasn’t it), and physically. But when all is said and done there is also a lot to be thankful for-my life partner Debbie, my son and daughter, my close friends no matter where they live, and my extended family in PA and Boston. They all have been comforting in trying times as ever they will be.

I thank god we live in a small community that does not like change and is rooted firmly in the past because they cherish the small things that used to constitute what America was 40 years ago. They are pleasant to each other, courteous, interested in your well-being, and most of all genuine and frank almost to a fault. This crosses all races and creeds much to the consternation of some, but is at the root of what makes New Orleans a true melting pot of ideas, art, culture, and everyday living. It has been that way for 300 years. The outcasts from Ireland, Sicily, Vietnam, and everywhere else have found a home here and flourished as well as culture outcasts like Tennessee Williams, Louis Armstrong, etc.

Living in this culture inoculates one against the “fear and loathing” that has run rampant across our great nation. When the rhetoric, fear, and instability are racing unchecked, we have a haven in our daily lives that counteract that and make the tough things easier to put into focus. I wish all of you have such a place of your own.

Now, go out and enjoy the holiday, be safe and for god’s sake come to visit us!! We are the best ambassadors this place could ever have and you will be not be sorry. CHEERS!!

Well, well, well. I have started a new site on different equipment just to test my skills. This was somewhat easier to do than the last one which was on Linux. I had a spare machine that was doing very little and decided to get my feet wet on the Mac side.

Coming from a Unix/Linux background, I found that installing, setting up and starting it was quite a bit easier on OS X than on ClearOs (which I used before). Using the tools provided from MySql and various adventurous users who already had made the leap, made the transition less problematic than I thought. Now I can use the “plugins” and “themes” from the WordPress collection the way it was supposed to work. That’s what irked me so much about the older install, too much dirt digging. I’m at the point where “point & click” is more usable than showing my skills on the command line. I want to use this blog for posting thoughts, not testing my patience.

Well, enough of that. My postings will probably be infrequent unless I have something incredibly bright to say or something or someone jabs me with a sharp stick and needs immediate retaliation. I’m posting this under a different user, but I’m Eddie all the same.