Blog Archive

View all the blog entries I've posted.

The First Blog
This is the first blog using the DAL and BLL. Hopefully I will encounter minimal issues. Happy Valentine's Day to everyone.
Posted: 2/14/2008 1:03:16 PM - Posted By: brhody - (3)Comments

The New DAL and BLL
This is a test of the new DAL and BLL as independent classes. There is also a model class, making this a 4-Tier Web Application
Posted: 12/30/2008 12:48:04 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

More Blogs to Come
More blogs will be coming and the ability to update is coming soon
Posted: 12/30/2008 2:17:12 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Comments
Comments are welcome and the counts are shown. Ability to edit comments is coming
Posted: 12/30/2008 2:17:39 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

4 Tier
My 4 tier model appears to be working fine now. I will take a copy of this home.
Posted: 12/30/2008 2:18:14 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Its 2009
2009 is here I should get this thing going. Don't you think?
Posted: 2/17/2009 10:27:48 AM - Posted By: Swian - (1)Comments

Getting Ready for the real deal
I'm getting ready to put the real version of my site live soon. Really, I AM!
Posted: 3/6/2009 2:23:42 PM - Posted By: Swian - (2)Comments

Getting There
Well I'm getting closer to having the new site up.
Posted: 3/17/2009 9:55:23 PM - Posted By: Swian - (0)Comments

GoDaddy pressure
I'm under pressure to finish this sooner as GoDaddy has messed up my old site.
Posted: 4/2/2009 10:03:41 AM - Posted By: Swian - (3)Comments

It's ALIVE!
My new site is now live on GoDaddy.com. Hate the way I have to load the database, but its a once in a while thing.
Posted: 4/2/2009 6:49:56 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Feeling better
I got sick friday afternoon and it peaked yesterday afternoon. Nyquilled up last night and got a good rest. I'm feeling better now, but still sedated from the nyquil. Hopefully I won't relapse because I'm sick of being sick.
Posted: 4/6/2009 5:54:48 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Lost my voice
I've never had this happen before, but my throat has been sore since Friday and somehow I've lost my voice. I can talk at a whisper or sound like someone who smoked a treetrunk the night before.
Posted: 4/8/2009 7:13:59 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

IIS.net rocks
I've been hitting http://iis.net hard the past few days and have been finding a lot of great helpers and add-ons for IIS. Thinking about upgrading my own server to 2008 so I can run IIS 7. So many great features with the Web Platform tool.
Posted: 4/10/2009 8:13:23 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Security
Well on one of my other sites people were using the comments section to post links for the spiders to catalog. I set the security on that site to allow html and http links. I have NOT allowed that on my site, so if you try it, your comment won't get in and I'll get an alert. So don't waste your time. I also get an email for each comment added and can respond and remove it immediately if I find its not appropriate. This is my site, my rules. Don't post comments if its not in the vein of the site.
Posted: 4/17/2009 5:45:59 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Let's paint!
I got the paint for the exterior of the house last weekend and this weekend my goal is to paint at least one side of the house and MAYBE the back if I can squeeze it in. Seems like lately I run around all weekend. My 40th birthday is coming up on a Saturday, I think I may want to sneak away and just sit on the beach and read that day.
Posted: 4/22/2009 5:13:10 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Fun weekend.
Well I painted one side of the house. Being sick while doing it was fun. Didn't get much more housework done, but I did reformat my Linux box to a dual boot machine. It now runs XP Pro and Ubuntu 9.04.
Posted: 4/27/2009 10:04:20 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Feeling better
Well, everyone in the house is feeling better. We're all still coughing a bit and blowing our noses, but the headaches and fevers are all gone. And NO I don't think it was swine flu, but just a nice cold my daughter caught and passed around.
Posted: 4/30/2009 4:59:27 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Yet more painting
I'm going to be painting the back of the house this weekend. The last side will have to wait a bit since its going to be a pain covering the fence on that side. Plus my 40th (egad) birthday is next weekend and I don't plan on spending it painting!
Posted: 5/1/2009 6:43:04 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Procrastinating
OK, I didn't get any more painting done this past weekend. I'm still suffering from this head cold and my sinuses are just killing me lately. I will get back on track and probably try and knock out the back and final side of the house in a single day.
Posted: 5/5/2009 9:57:50 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

The Four-Oh (40)
Tomorrow is my 40th birthday. To celebrate I'm taking a day off from everything and everyone. Hitting the beach in the morning with my mp3 player, a good book and iced tea. In the afternoon I'm going to see the Wolverine Origins movie. I'll rejoin my family for dinner out at a very nice steakhouse and then home for some beer and WoW. Of course mother's day robs me of getting a whole weekend out of the deal, but oh well.
Posted: 5/8/2009 7:21:30 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

The 4-0 was nice
Had a very nice birthday weekend for my 40th. Went to the beach Saturday morning, read my book, walked around and picked up shells for my daughter. Then I came home had a nice hour or so with my kids and then went and saw Wolverine. Good flick. Then my wife and I went out to dinner at a nice steakhouse and I had a good rib eye and a couple gin and tonics. Today we went to my parents house for mothers day and they surprised me with a small 40th birthday party. My mom made my favorite meal from when I was a kid, lamb chops and we had CARVEL ice cream cake. Very fun, my wife rocks for setting that up.
Posted: 5/10/2009 5:57:33 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

64 Bit Blues
Well 64bit operating systems may have better performance than their 32 bit relatives, but try finding drivers and vpn clients! Not happening. I'll stick with it on my PC since XP 32 bit won't see all 4gb of ram, but I think I'll have to run a virtual to connect for work.
Posted: 5/13/2009 10:08:32 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

No painting this weekend
Looks like rain this weekend so I will hold off on the painting. I'll try and take the kids to the zoo early so they can have some fun.
Posted: 5/15/2009 8:23:32 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Level 30
I hit level 30 in World of Warcraft this weekend with my main character. Finally, I HAVE A HORSE. Movement is much faster now. I also re-installed Guild Wars, which I really want to get used to. The graphics are smoother than WoW, but the game play is a little different and the movement is sometimes a bit distracting. My head keeps comparing it to WoW and if I could get over that I'm sure it would be as fun as WoW is.
Posted: 5/18/2009 4:57:55 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Vacation Time
The three day weekend is over, but I have two more days off. I planned to spend it at the beach today with my kids, but I came down with a very nice fever last night. I got a lot of work done over the weekend around the house, but if I'd know about this I would've taken the kids somewhere fun sunday.
Posted: 5/26/2009 4:34:27 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Good weekend
Went to my parents Saturday so the kids could go in the pool. Today, even though my wife is sick, I had a pretty good day. Took my daughter shopping with me this morning to the bulk items club, then came home and mowed the lawn. After that I took my son to pick up a few groceries. After lunch I played with the kids for a while until they napped. Now they're watching a video until I start dinner.
Posted: 6/7/2009 1:43:33 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Fix Windows Holes!!
OK, I have 5 PC's at home, 2 of which thankfully are dual boot XP/Ubuntu. I have antivirus running on all the Windows OS's, not free ones, premium ones I researched. When I was running virus scans last night 4 of the 5 PCs had viruses. One of them which is only used to visit kids sites had the worst ones that crippled the browsers. Now, I run windows because I do some gaming and develop windows software for my job, but if I have to keep spending this much effort to keep the machines clean, I'm going to convert all but my server and my workstation (which is dual boot) to Ubuntu and be done with it. My god, if a company with as much cash as MS can't plug their security holes then they should at LEAST provide the BEST antivirus software available for their OS, FOR FREE!
Posted: 6/9/2009 5:24:41 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

If it's too loud...
Yeah, it's too loud and I'm TOO old. Heard my old guitar players band's stuff from facebook and can't say that I appreciate it at all. Sorry 'do.
Posted: 6/11/2009 8:35:50 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Good weekend
Got a lot in this past weekend. Saturday we took my daughter to the new park in town that opened, where she had a blast. Then we went out for lunch at the great german place. I got the lawn mowed before the rain and then we had a very good dinner. Sunday we did some shopping for home items in the morning then looked at a house in the historic district and then went out to lunch. After lunch we took my daughter to another park, then went to BJs (bulk store) on the way home and ran into a little girl and her family we know from some of my daughter's art classes and those two kids ran all over the place together. Had another good fish dinner and just DROPPED after. Busy, but fun.
Posted: 6/15/2009 11:58:08 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

More Tunes, Less Blog..
I finally took down the blog section on the TrueDetectives.com site after all the abuse. I tried taking the site down for a few weeks, but as soon as I put it back up the abuse started again, so down it goes. Maybe I will replace it with a message board who knows. I DID finally get around to creating some more MP3's from tapes and adding them to the site (TD's site). Go check it out.
Posted: 6/19/2009 5:41:00 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Chrome OS - WHY?
Google has announced that they are jumping into the OS market and releasing Chrome, a linux based OS. Apparently no one at google has taken not of Ubuntu or GoS which are linux distros that are already popular with geeks. I'm guessing a few people will try the Chrome OS, but they're kidding themselves thinking it will compete with windows any better than some of the established linux based OSes currently on the market.
Posted: 7/8/2009 9:37:31 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

FISHING CHARTER!
This Saturday a group of us from work are going out on a fishing charter. We've all been looking forward to this for a long time. Hopefully we'll be bringing home some good fish for dinner that night. I'm taking a camera and will be posting some pics on my Facebook page that evening or sunday morning.
Posted: 7/16/2009 5:45:22 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Been a while...
It's been a while since I've blogged.

I'm thinking about creating a publish to Facebook control for this blog so I'll have incentive to use it more.
 
There's not a lot happening, playing WoW nightly, working. I did set up a new linux box for Php development and created a USB jumpr drive that is a full LAMP server. Fun stuff.

Been watching the hurricane activity, a popular sport in FL. Bill is pretty well passed us now and not a threat. Well, back to work.
Posted: 8/21/2009 10:21:58 AM - Posted By: swian - (0)Comments

Tech Support
A friend of mine sent me a link to a funny flow chart for "tech support".

What's funny is how true it is. I think the thing that separates computer people from average people is the willingness to try SOMETHING when a problem arises. We don't know anymore than everyone else, we're just not afraid to push a few buttons and see what happens. Check out this link.

Posted: 8/24/2009 9:54:36 AM - Posted By: swian - (0)Comments

Coming down
My friend Bob is supposed to be coming down from NJ this weekend with his whole family. We're going to try and get together for a bit on the weekend.

I've been delving more into Php and specifically the MVC framework for Php (CakePhp). I've got my windows server configured to handle Php. Yes some people would rather see Php running on Apache on linux, but I already have this box configured and hosting .Net sites and IIS 7 CAN do Php and the benchmarks look good. I will be installing MySQL 5.1 even though I have SQL server. Mainly because 99% of Php sites run against MySql and I want to at least be consistent with my development practices.

We're also been watching a possible tropical depression/storm forming down around Cuba. Nothing major yet, but still watching.

Posted: 8/26/2009 4:57:15 AM - Posted By: swian - (1)Comments

Hurricane Season Continues
Well, Danny broke down into nothing, Bill stayed well off the coast and didn't really do much but kick up the surf on the east coast.

Now we have a new system that will probably develop into something in the next day or so.

It's not a fun time of year in FL for the weather. Right now its either super hot and humid, raining like mad or waiting to see if a hurricane is going to be heading our way.

NOAA should be posting an update soon. I'll keep watching.

Posted: 8/30/2009 7:41:45 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Opera 10
I'm giving Opera 10 (the web browser) a chance today 

Interestingly its not working with the ajax HTML control very well, so points off for that

I can't type a period and hitting return once should create a new paragraph, bit its not

My website did load faster, which was nice, so I'll report back later on how the day went using Opera
Posted: 9/1/2009 6:49:54 AM - Posted By: swian - (0)Comments

Author?
Well I've taught web design in college and my older brother has authored several books (technology related) and encouraged me several times to do the same.

I finally think I'm going to attempt it.

From what I've seen out there, no one has written a book on web design and ASP.Net. Using ASP.Net, Professional ASP.Net, etc. But not one on designing in the ASP.Net environment.

Being that my degree is in graphic design and I've been doing web design since HTML 1.0 and Mosaic was the main browser I think I have something to give back.

I'm going to start mapping out what I'd like to put in the book, then map out some small and large projects and pull it all together.

Wish me luck.

Posted: 9/1/2009 6:15:41 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Long weekend....
Labor day is this coming Monday and I've decided to stretch out the long weekend even more by taking off Friday and Tuesday.

No real plans, I'm sure my wife will have ideas.

Posted: 9/3/2009 6:22:26 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Bring Back My Mac
I dusted off my old reliable Macintosh G4 this weekend and got it all setup in the office.

It's still running well and after popping a couple new hard drives in and installing the OS its up and running and working for doing Php development.

So I now have Windows, Linux and Mac running in my home office again.                

Posted: 9/7/2009 6:36:08 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Sold my Truck
I finally sold my 2001 Jimmy. It was on craigslist for quite a while, and I lowered the price to about what I'd get on trading it and THAT'S when people started contacting me. 

One down, one to go. The VW Golf is up for sale too. Once I sell that I'm hoping to find a nice used VW Jetta or Passat, but I wouldn't mind a Golf again either.
Posted: 9/25/2009 5:07:58 AM - Posted By: Swian - (0)Comments

WoW Free Alternative
I really like World of Warcraft (WoW) and I play online with my brother and friends all the time. Now I've been trying to get my wife into MMORPG games, but I don't want to spring for a WoW account, or buy Guild Wars if she's not going to keep up on it.

So, I've been on the lookout for a free MMORPG that was decent. I tried a few that were OK, but nothing I'd really see myself playing. Then I found Shaiya. It's graphics aren't as polished as WoW or GW, but they don't suck either. The game play is on par with WoW and much to my surprise there are quite a few people playing on the servers.

I recommend trying it - http://shaiya.aeriagames.com/
Posted: 9/25/2009 5:30:24 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

More MMORPG
I tried another MMORPG F2P (Free To Play). It's called Runes of Magic.

Its actually not too bad. The play is very much like WoW, with differences of course, but its enough like WoW that if someone were to play it and then decide to move to WoW there wouldn't be a difficult transition.

Give it a try - http://us.runesofmagic.com/us/index.html

Posted: 10/1/2009 5:56:14 PM - Posted By: Swian - (0)Comments

Dexterity
I've been taking a class on a programming laguage this week. Its called Dexterity, which is used for making modifications to Microsoft Dynamics GP.

The class is been going very well and I hope to be able to apply some of what I've learned next week.
Posted: 10/9/2009 5:08:14 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Windows 7... good so far
I've been running Windows 7 64bit on my home PC now for about a week and must say its been very stable and a nice experience.

I can't say its really any better than XP. Its supposed to be more secure, and my antivirus found 2 threats and removed them, but I got that on XP as well. All my software works and it found all my hardware no problem.

Having 64bit now allows my PC to use all 4gb of RAM and the interface is really nice, but again I can't think of anything I can do in 7 I couldn't in XP.

Don't get me wrong, I do LIKE 7 but I think the reason most people will upgrade is just to have something newer, not necessarily better.

Posted: 10/28/2009 5:51:14 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Ubuntu is back
After installing Windows 7 on my main PC I had blown out my Ubuntu partition during the install. I began to seriously miss my linux side and was anxious to reinstall, luckily for me Ubuntu has just released 9.10 which has a very nice Windows installer.

The installer worked perfectly and I even put the linux partition on a secondary drive so I won't lose it again.

Ubuntu 9.10 has some nicer interface features including an updated software installer for packages that is more user friendly. I personally liked the older version better, but hey, it still works fine.

The nvidia drivers were easier to deal with on this version than the previous version (9.04) and after a couple hours I had everything I needed installed and configured the way I like it.

Glad to have you back Ubuntu, you were missed.

Posted: 11/4/2009 5:54:26 AM - Posted By: brhody - (1)Comments

it's a shame
It really is a shame that as a developer you spend more time putting in code to block people who abuse your site then you do adding features.

Posted: 12/10/2009 7:06:13 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Wine
I do the website for http://winebroker.com and I have to say, I love the wine. A fringe benefit is that I get some free wine here and there.

The best wine they have is Vallicello, it's a great mild, sweet red wine and everyone I've ever given it to has asked where to get it.

So stop by winebroker.com and order some Vallicello - formerly selling Travicello, for the holidays.

Posted: 12/13/2009 2:08:10 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Php revisited
Found my archive of old Php sites and I was starting to get back into open source development anyway so I think I revive these sites and get them loaded up.

Fun doing development on the Ubuntu box with all open source tools.

Posted: 12/17/2009 7:05:13 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Qimo - for kids
In the process of looking for local Ubuntu groups in FL I came across a nice find. Qimo - an Ubuntu based OS specifically for kids, check it out and install it if you have a spare machine or feel comfortable dual booting your Windows PC.

Posted: 1/9/2010 9:16:54 AM - Posted By: swian - (0)Comments

Facebooking
People can say what they want about facebook and social networking online, but thanks to facebook the members of True Detectives (a band I was in way back) have all started communicating again.

The members of the band are ALL talking to each other, contributing content to TrueDetectives.com and actually planning a reunion for later this summer.

Thanks facebook.

Posted: 2/8/2010 8:23:49 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

St. Patty's Day Joke
In honor of St. Patrick's Day here is one of my favorite Irish jokes:

A Texan visiting Ireland walks into a local pub and says "I hear you Irish can really drink. I've got $100 for the first one of you that can drink 10 pints of Guinness in 30 seconds." The pub gets silent and one man even leaves.

About 10 minutes pass and the man who left comes back in and asks the Texan "Does your offer still stand?" and the Texan replies "Well sure son, step on up and give it a go."

The man downs the 10 pints in 28 seconds. The Texan clearly impressed says "That's great son, here's your money, but I gotta ask, why did you leave before when I made the offer? The Irish man replies, "I went to the pub down the street to make sure I could do it first".

Posted: 3/17/2010 7:50:32 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Just thinking
Just thinking about a lot of things lately. The RA isn't so bad, but had some unforeseen expenses this month which set us back a bit. Work has been a bit stressful, wondering if my department will be trimmed or eliminated. If I knew life was going to be like this I think I'd have tried to have more fun when I was younger.

Posted: 4/1/2010 6:04:18 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

D&D online goes free!
Dungeons & Dragons has gone to a free 2 play model. You can still slap down the credit card if you want some extras, kind of the same model as Runes of Magic. Be interesting to see what World of Warcfaft does now that this model is getting more popular. Check out the D&D site for download.

Posted: 4/2/2010 4:28:03 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

No iPad for me thanks
It never ceases to amaze me how apple has turned into a kool-aid machine. The iPad, what good is this thing? No keyboard, basically for surfing the web and doing basic email? And people will shell out $400-$500 for it? I'm sorry, I used to be into apple, but now they just make hyper-marketed products that really don't serve to innovate, only to tightly control content and give people who buy into it a limited set of tools. It must be something I need Steve Jobs told me so.

Posted: 4/5/2010 7:41:10 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Getting Better All The Time?
I'm really trying to be less grouchy and more positive, I am. With all the issues I've had crop up int past month I find it a bit challenging. Getting news now about our band reunion possibly falling apart is discouraging as well, as I was really looking forward to it.

Some people look to religion for answers, but that doesn't work for me. Hopefully I can find some balance and start looking for the brighter spots in my universe.

Posted: 4/6/2010 7:25:00 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Band Reunion
Well it looks like we are finalizing the labor day weekend for the band reunion. Mike is proposing we eat some of the same crap we had when we were in Camden and broke. I'm not down with that, but I'm still planning on going.

This is going to be fun and I'm really looking forward to it. I think I'm closer to the band crew than I am to my own family and really want to see everyone again.

Posted: 4/8/2010 5:50:15 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

The Masters
I'm hoping Fred Couples can pull out a victory today. He's not far off the leader and it would be great to see him get another green jacket. Good luck to Tom Watson as well.

And although I'm not actually rooting against Tiger, let's see some attention paid to the other guys on the tour by the media for a change.

Posted: 4/11/2010 5:26:31 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Working Weekend
I got a lot done this weekend, yard work, dog washing, a LOT of cooking. All that was great.

Congrats to Phil Mickelson winning the Masters, I watched it and was impressed. Also, Fred Couples placed well. I still enjoy watching him play and wish he won it, but he did great.

Posted: 4/11/2010 6:57:05 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Cut the cable!
I did this about two years ago and I'm now seeing articles about how a lot of other people are as well.

When I got fed up with the cable and satellite providers constantly upping the prices and not giving me the channels I wanted in the lower priced "packages" I said BYE. I canceled my Direct TV and just kept my cable modem. I hooked up a PC to my LCD to stream shows from hulu and other sources and just use rabbit ears for the over the air signal.

Now a lot of people don't realize that OTA is HD broadcast and the quality is great and we get about 40 channels, crystal clear. This allows us to watch the news and some network programming for shows we like.

Now with a Netflix account I can stream and watch shows from TV and movies all I want as well.

As the pay providers clamp down more and more to try and save an outdated business model, more and more people will be going this route and they'll be losing even more viewers. I've told several friends about what I did and they've gone this route as well and found that instead of having less things to watch there is MORE and you watch when YOU want.

I won't cry much when the cable providers start bleeding customers so much they have no choice but to change.

Posted: 4/14/2010 5:01:17 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Thanks Steve Harris
I've been getting into Iron Maiden again the past few weeks. They used to be one of my favorite bands and I really was into them heavily when I started playing bass.

It might sound more high brow now to say my influences were Jaco Pastorius and Jonas Hellborg, but the fact is I really loved Steve Harris from Iron Maiden when I started, and now listening again, I remember why. He was probably my main influence in getting a Fender Precision Bass.

Posted: 4/17/2010 1:05:44 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

I don't like spam!
No one likes spam, except in Hawaii where its on the menu in every fast food restaurant. But I'm talking about spam as it relates to Email.

At home I get a few pieces here and there, not too bad considering I've had my own domain and email account for over 10 years. Its really a credit to my mail provider.

Work is another story. For some reason our Barracuda is NOT used to scan subject, sender or body and filter out the email as this would "reduce the delivery times". Yes, of course it would, but isn't that the point? If something can read the mail and weed out the crap you expect some lag between when its received at the server and delivered to your mail box, of course then you wouldn't get 20-50 pieces of JUNK a day at lightning speed.

I now have 3-4 rules with TONS of parameters running to deal with about 80% of the spam I get, and I update it often. So now part of MY time is spent really doing something that can be handled by a machine. I for one would accept a delayed delivery (which most people wouldn't notice) if it meant I didn't have to SEE mail that I never should get.

Posted: 4/19/2010 8:17:30 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Old School Gaming
Dug up Unreal Tournament and put it on my PC again for a little FPS action and it got me thinking about trying to get an old-school LAN party going at work some night. We used to do it at the marketing company I worked at every Thursday night for a while and it was always fun.

Posted: 4/20/2010 5:37:20 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Lucid Lynx
I loaded Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) as a dual boot install on my PC this weekend.

I've loved Ubuntu since version 5, but I have to say, the polish on this version is amazing. You can put this version up against Windows 7 and OS X and be hard pressed to find a complaint.

Come on, you've heard about it, give it a try. http://ubuntu.com

Posted: 5/1/2010 6:32:29 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Linux, its not just a hobby anymore
If you've ever found yourself wondering about Linux and what the story is, I've got a nice article for you (below keep reading).

A lot of people have the (wrong) assumption that Linux is complicated to install and learn. That's what Microsoft would have you believe. Don't fall for it. I've posted about Ubuntu before, very easy to install, rich with features, lacking in nothing software-wise (ok, not a lot of games if that's your thing) and very little to worry about in terms of viruses and malware.

How much TIME do viruses and malware eat into your productivity? I ask this after spending the better part of a weekend rescuing data and reinstalling Vista on a neighbors PC. Well, think about it while you read THIS: http://thistleweb.co.uk/blog/27/04/2010/hobbyists-os

Posted: 5/3/2010 4:34:00 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

IRC anyone?
I've been using IRC (Internet Relay Chat) for a number of years. I'm the manager of a channel (#ivagabonds) on Undernet as well.

Recently, I put a chat client embedded on my site to allow people to chat with my Undernet channel via a web page; click the chat link in the footer navigation to try it. You can also download an IRC client yourself. I recommend XChat.

Posted: 5/17/2010 4:33:41 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Long Weekened
Memorial Day weekend is upon us. I took Friday off as well to make it a 4-day weekend. Hopefully I will get a chance to take the kids to the parks a couple times this weekend.

Posted: 5/27/2010 4:06:10 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Green Monster
Well I built another machine from spare parts this weekend. I reused the green alienware case I've had for years and made a new linux box. It's running Ubuntu 10.04 on a P4 Hyper Threaded CPU with 1gb RAM and a 200GB hard drive. Nice machine and screaming with linux.

Posted: 5/30/2010 3:30:12 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

New linux box and the KVM is back
I purchased a new power supply this past weekend which allowed me to build another "new" pc. New for me, not new parts.

This is now my dedicated Linux Ubuntu box.

Of course desk space is limited, so I broke the KVM out of storage and hooked it up so I can toggle between my Windows 7 box and the Ubuntu box. I'm still in need of some small, cheap speakers for basic sound, which I KNOW I have somewhere.

All in all, a fun little project for the weekend I squeezed in between taking the kids all over the place.

Posted: 6/1/2010 5:50:04 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

openSUSE
I've wiped the ubuntu install of my green PC as I've got it running on several PC's and wanted to try another linux distro for a good period of time.

I opted for openSUSE 11.2 and so far, its very stable and working well for me. Some apps I've used aren't in the repositories, but its nothing major.

Posted: 6/10/2010 5:35:56 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Back to Ubuntu
Well I tried openSUSE 11.2 for a week and will say I liked it. I found it very stable and configurable, but I'm just to used to Ubuntu I guess since I've been using it since version 5.

I switched back to Ubuntu 10.04 and I'm going to stay with this for my dedicated linux box. It's what I like and know and until something comes along that is as friendly and intuitive, I'm good.

Posted: 6/13/2010 2:41:34 PM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

End of a short week
Well, I only had to work three days this week, but its felt like a full week.

I took advantage of the July 4th holiday and added an extra couple vacation days to make it a five day weekend. We took the kids to the Gaylord Palms hotel to enjoy the pools, but had to cut it short as there was a lot of rain.

That's it for vacations until Labor Day weekend. I'm not planning on going anywhere for that though.

Posted: 7/9/2010 4:11:17 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

I love Linux, but....
OK, I love Linux, I really do. I run Ubuntu dual boot on most of my PCs with the exception of two, which are dedicated Ubuntu machines.

I tell people about it all the time and I've gotten a few people to try it, really try it and they love it too.

Now I read an article this morning where a tech installed Ubuntu on a users laptop without consulting them first, turns out they loved it, great but here's WHY I wouldn't do that.

Several times I've had other people's PCs for me to repair and I ask, "what do you do with this machine?" Several times there was ONE app that was Windows only that really stopped me from pushing Linux. A home schooling app here, a coupon application there, deal breaker.

I would say its not the BIG apps that are the issue, its the small obscure ones, that some people just can't live without that stops me from putting Linux on their PCs.

Yes, I know you can run SOME (and really only some) apps under wine. But in doing that you add something ELSE the user has to deal with and that's not what they want. They want easy and comfortable.

Don't get me wrong, when I see the opportunity I at LEAST advocate a dual boot, but its not always an easy sell or the best solution.

Posted: 7/27/2010 3:51:46 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Dude, get a Dell....with Ubuntu!
I should have posted this a while back, but recent articles on the Linux sites have inspired me to do so now.

One of the biggest sellers of PCs in the world supports Linux, specifically Ubuntu. So why not give it a chance?

Visit Dell's site for your Ubuntu based PC today!

Posted: 7/28/2010 4:37:29 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Over Facebook
I stopped actively using facebook about 2 months ago, and recently suspended my account.

FB seems a half-hearted way to connect that makes people think they're still friends.

I'm done.

Posted: 8/18/2010 5:44:52 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments

Lazy Forum users
One thing that really irritates me is how technically lazy people have become.

When I'm on IRC (look it up) or on technical forums it always amazes me how many people ask for something and I do a quick google search and find their answer in the FIRST result. TRY to find the answer YOURSELF first. Does everyone need someone to hold their hand?

I'm going to start just posting back this URL: http://lmgtfy.com/
Nuff said.
Posted: 8/26/2010 4:00:19 AM - Posted By: brhody - (0)Comments