Congratulations KDE Team on their Beta 1 announcement! I’ve been a fan of KDE since way back when. I don’t recall what version they were on when I first found them. I’ve tried many Desktop Environments and Window Managers and I always find myself coming back to KDE. It was always a toss up between Fluxbox and KDE for me. I finally ended up staying in KDE for my desktops and using Flux on my servers.

Recently I switched my main desktop back to Windows Vista (pausing for sighs of dismay). Right before KDE 4. Right before the beauty of Plasma. Right before KDE went to the next level! I will definitely be trying it out to see what Plasma is like. I just have to ask, WHY CAN’T WINDOWS LEARN FROM THIS!? I mean, Aero has the ability to do all of this stuff, but they don’t. Hate that.

I miss my Kontact, aKregator, and most of all amaroK! Well, anyway, I just wanted to give my congratulations to the KDE Team! I may not being in KDE anymore, but I still think of it fondly. :) Keep up the good work, guys and gals, and keep showing the world what Open Source projects can do!

Hello there my faithful readers! It’s been forever and a day, and I wanted to just drop a line to say we’re still alive and kicking… The running theme these days seems to be sickness. Rhys has a cough right now, but he just got over (or is getting over) a real nasty stomach bug. It turned him into a human lawn sprinkler if you catch my drift. Poor kid just can’t seem to catch a break! On top of that, Heidi was diagnosed with Bronchitis! YAY! So much for riding this out until we get back on insurance. Chalk that up to another one of my brilliant foresights… I have remained sickness free, which is important when you have a new job.

I’m still working on websites on the side, and have been working with a local politician. A friend of mine and I are thinking of marketing to the local political scene to see if we can drum up some beer money. The market is ripe, and we have the skills. Might as well try capitalizing on it. At the worst it’s a learning experience — such is life.

Not too long ago, Rhys when #2 on the big boy potty for the very first time! So, he got himself a brand new red bicycle! He’s so excited about it. Even in his weakened condition, he insists on riding his bike outside a little bit each day. He gets about two good pedals in and then has to rest to catch his breath and drink some Gatorade! LOL  He’s a trooper! Of course, we don’t let him take it too far! What’s more, with me concentrating on studies, mom seems to be the one taking him out most of the time. I swear I will do more here soon, but studies take priority right now.

Speaking of studies, I’m studying up on .NET programming. Both the Win32 side and the Web App side. It’s so good to be back in Visual Studio, even for my Open Source projects. I have to hand it to Microsoft with Visual Studio, it’s just some bad ass shit. I gave my old copy of Studio to the neighbor kid who has shown an interest in programming — my good deed for the month. Hopefully he doesn’t squander the opportunity to take the free time in his life right now, and get a leg up on the working world.

That’s about it. Nothing too interesting, and I’m sure I am forgetting quite a bit of shit, but I’ll write more in here, I promise. Even if it is fluff, like this. :)

Yep, I’m installing Windows at home again… Fret not, it’s just for gaming. I mean, that’s what winders is for, right? I need some gaming fix and I need Windows in order to do it in a non-stressful fashion. So, here we go.

First XP CD I found produced a blue screen when trying to start the Windows GUI for installation. Not a good start. Though, I thought it an appropriate welcome back to the neighborhood.

The second CD I found installed just fine. But, look at this, no video driver, no ethernet, no SM Bus, no “PCI Device”, no “USB Device”, and no 3D video controller… So much for plug and play. But again, I imagine it would be much the same as returning to Korea after all these years and smelling the wonderful open sewer system again. Oh yes… I remember that…

Ok, now we’re in driver hell. Yes, folks, no matter what Billy-boy would have you believe you do need to fetch drivers for XP most of the time. Kinda sad that it didn’t have the network driver built in, however. That little bit of fun makes it particularly difficult. So, I use my trusty laptop to download the necessary drivers. I installed the video, network, and chipset drivers. I was installing the video drivers lastly and when it came time to be done it asked me as per usual, “Restart Now?”. To which I was going to say yes. But, no… USB had died. No PS2 ports for keyboards, or and don’t you love how there is no CLI (especially a remote CLI) to enable a graceful shutdown. Looks like this reboot will be medieval style.

Well, FINALLY all the drivers are good. Had to step back the nVidia driver because the newer one was borking up. Other than that, we’re good. Doing the Update - Reboot dance now. Rhys is begging me to install the Sims…. I can’t wait to install some Counter-Strike tho. ;)

I just love shit like the Flo Control. Other guys dream about project cars and putting on a second story for their house. I dream about computerizing everything from the blinds to the flushing of the toilets. I mean how cool would it be to have a PA system in your house, connected to a voice activated computer that would provide you with all kinds of data and help.

Things like checking if it’s raining, and if it is, not watering the plants. Is it cold inside the house? Check the time and see if the sun is in a good position to allow for natural heating and open the corresponding blinds. Are the lights on in a certain room and there are no humans in that room? Turn off the lights… Shit like that.

As with project cars, you need money to do these things… One day I’ll get to indulge my inner mad-scientist. :)

One of my most favorite project houses is linked here. I can’t wait to get something like this setup at home.

Well, I missed a couple days there. Mostly due to a massive Linux crash that I had to recover from. Just one of those things where I was tweaking shit, and it created a cascade of seg faults, and I finally gave up and blew the system out. The best thing about Linux still remains its biggest curse. Tons of choice. Unfortunately, this means Linux does a really poor job of protecting you from yourself. :) Mac does a great job at it, and unfortunately really limits the choice you have, and Windows is in the middle ground somewhere I think. Blessing and a curse.

The one saving grace is Linux isn’t cursed with a registry. So, restoring a fresh system is as easy as reloading the files to the / partition, and my /home partition just seamlessly integrates back in. Keeping all my prefs and what not.

So, I’m back, and will be posting again! YAY!

Ok, the reason this post isn’t more meaty is Angband… Tonight was the first night I got to relax in awhile, so I just played me some Angband… GOD it’s a great game! Oh, and you’d think you’d be able to notice right off if you were trying to beat down a Kobold with a shovel! You know what I’m talkin about?