One of my fondest childhood memories is of the various chemistry experiments my father and I used to do. This was back when chemistry sets actually had chemicals in them. Things like sulfur, and other things with funny looking names ending in ate, ite, and ide.

Recently I was going through my father’s storage room and came across a very old jar of powdered sulfur. I opened that jar up and gazed upon the golden powder. Still as fresh as the day it was purchased. Memories came rushing back, and I quickly started my search for the zinc dust needed to properly catalyze the mixture into a thick plume of stinky smoke and a brilliant blueish flame. At least I think it was blueish. It was so long ago.

I’m certain the neighbors HATED us. I used to build little army camps out of balsa wood, and then mix up some of the smoke bomb powder and plant it all over the camp. Then use something to carry the flame to all spots on the camp to blow up the powder. 15ft – 20ft mushroom clouds of the most rank smelling crap would billow up from the ground. It was beautiful…

The smoke was heavier than the ambient air, so it would quickly settle back down — usually into the neighbor’s yard making it look like a scene from a horror B-movie, and smelling like a field of rotten eggs.

Ahhh good times. So, anyway, Powdered Sulfur + Zinc Dust = Lot’s O’ Fun! More Zinc = more flame. More Sulphur = more smoke and stink.

One of my father’s favorite stories was when he used to get a bit of the mixture and pour it out on someone’s front porch by the front door. Then he’d attach a kitchen match to the bottom corner of the screen door in such a way that it would strike when the door was opened. Also, in such a way that the door would carry the flame into the powder. Thus igniting the stink bomb, while the front door was open. :)

Makes you think twice about going cheap on the candy for Halloween!

Oh, and if you have a good source for Zinc Dust, let me know!

Success!! Oh my god that was way more difficult than I thought it would be. I’d like to coin the Law of Multiple Linux Installs, but I can’t do the math to figure out the equation. It just seems that new Linux distros always require multiple installs before you get comfortable — inversely proportionate to the amount of distros you have used in the past… Or something like that.

Anyway, Mythbuntu lives! I finally got it running like a champ on the media center machine. I must say I love all the features it has in comparison to Windows Media Center… But, Windows Media Center was FAR easier to get goin. I’ll pay the price of a less user friendly install for the increased freedom I have, though. It’s nice to be able to rip DVDs into your media library just by clicking a button on your media center. Also, there is commercial detection, master/slave configurations for multiple frontends and backends, and best of all it was $0…

So, highly recommended if you are looking for a media center solution.

So, I’ve come so very close to getting my PVR working with MythTV and Kubuntu. So very close, yet still so very far away. Some of my Gentoo experiences have really come in handy, because the GUI tools for doing things in Linux are still quite lacking, but I’m still unable to get my signal to go through on MythTV. If I cat the video device, I can pull an MPG out of it, so I know the tuners are working. But, Myth pops with a blank screen. I think I just need to change the display method, but I found a solution that I think I might like better.

Enter MythBuntu.  MythBuntu is basically a stripped down Ubuntu distro which has Myth on it. It is intended for stand-alone Myth boxes, so I think it will be perfect. I burned the iso this morning, and will be installing it tonight. Hopefully with some success, so I can turn my attention onto some of my web dev projects which have been sorely neglected for some time.

Rhys has been really missing the PVR. It’s weird to think that he has never known TV without a PVR. He doesn’t understand the concept that he cannot watch whatever he wants whenever he wants. Man… How DID we live with out PVRs in the past!?

I’ll report back with my review of MythBuntu later. Wish me luck, gang!

My 3 year old son talked to me tonight about what he wants to do to his computer… Here’s how the conversation went:

Rhys: Daddy… Dad… Daddy… DAAAAD!

Me: WHAT!?

Rhys: So, I’m gonna build my computer!

Me (beaming with pride): Awww. Right on, boy! That’s great!

Rhys: Yeah! Just like you! First I’m going to install Windows! And then….

Me (pride has been replaced with disappointment): WHAT!? Dude! You don’t want to install Windows! You want Linux! It’s much better.

Rhys: No, I’m going to install Windows… And then I’m gonna….

Me: Dude!! Trust me! You want Linux on your computer! Not Windows!

Rhys: NO! I’m going to install windows!! And then, I’m going to install doors… And then…. blah blah blah.

So, you salivating over Vista because it’s pretty? I don’t blame you one bit. Just before I finally became fed up with Microsoft (again), I was salivating over Vista too! I was totally willing to overlook the poorly thought out security enhancements. I will still admit they are on the right track with the whole running at the user level thing. But, seriously, with all the great examples of how it’s done in Linux and BSD, you’d think they could have stolen that code and made something a bit worthwhile. Mac OSX implements this perfectly — it is a BSD OS, but still.

Anyway, then I came to my senses after hearing about Windows 7, the little stealth update stunt that Microsoft pulled, and of course their desire to move toward subscription based revenue for Windows products.

I was a bit distraught. Happy to be back on Linux of course, but sad that XOrg hadn’t really made any leaps and bounds since I last saw it. No alpha transparency still!? Come on! Or so I thought. A friend of mine turned me on to the Beryl Project. Last night after a bit of fiddling I got it installed. It looks to be a gtk app, and thus built for Gnome, but it does work fine in KDE, and no real annoying inconsistencies.

If you are running Linux as your main desktop and you haven’t checked out Beryl, you must! It brings the pretty GUI to the Open Source community! So far no problems with it crashing, or getting along with KDE! Just had to give them a plug and a thanks!

So, where am I at now? Well, I have two more clients to get moved over to the new remote Linux server. They’d be moved by now, except they haven’t moved their nameservers yet… Grrr. My local server is now Linux, and I’m creating the file serving structure now. Gotta bone up on Samba!! I took the domain down here at home. I mean really, who needs an Enterprise Domain at home!? I’m trying to be a bit more realistic on my outlook for my home network this time around.

Next in line will be the conversion of the media center from the Dark OS to Linux. That should be interesting. I’ve never ventured down that road before, and I am very eager to see what the outcome will be!

After that, it’s back to dev work on some web properties and trying to monetize them! Hopefully next year will bare some fruits of my labors. Here’s to hoping!!