I Checked my site visit statistics and noticed that I’m now on the Linux.conf.au planet, I don’t normally put my blog up for planets but it was part of the registration and was easy. so hello my extra blog readers from http://planet.linux.org.au/lca2009/
Linux.conf.au, I have tickets to for the conf. Tiger airways are now on my list of banned airlines, In 1 year they’ve gone from alright to horrible. Basically they canceled our flights from Melbourne to Hobart. and put us on other ones but then we can’t get the Jetstar flights we have to connect us to the Newcastle to Melbourne Part. So more money had to be spent Tiger gave a less than expected refund.
Related on the 18th January we fly into Melbourne from Newcastle at 7:40 am our next flight to Hobart doesn’t leave until 17:55 so we have 8 hours in Melbourne to kill, please leave suggestions in comments if you have some ideas of what to do.
Kym and Linux.conf.au. Not so good she is trialling her talk out at work the week before, but the robot isn’t ready yet… it was meant to be ready for her last year but the processor still isn’t inside the bear yet. As for the talk well the OO.o sliders aren’t finished yet either.
Still looking for a new OS for my Acer Aspire looked at Kuki.me but it’s still not near production stage yet.
Christmas was very good to Gabz, he scored Wii controllers, remote control helicopters and of course what this post is about, a new netbook, namely a Acer Aspire One, Linpus 512 Mb Ram 8 Gb SSD.
Impressive Parts
Size, Weight and Keyboard.
It’s small like you would expect but the keyboard is easier to type on that the XO olpc which is the only other netbook sort of thing I’ve gotten to play with. It’s really light weight and the battery is giving me 2.5 hours.
Boot time – Linpus got one thing right 14 second boot time from cold boot it also does hibernate but that isn’t really any slower than a cold boot.
3G Modem support. If your 3G modem is made by Huawei (Optus, Vodafone or 3 ) then your in luck once you download the software from the acer site the Huawei modems work great. They even use the same software as you would under windows so you can still send those SMS messages. only extra step is making a new profile for your modem.
Mobile Partner
If the 8 Gb SSD Isn’t enough for you, you can expand with a SD Card they even merge the 2 drives together to appear as a single drive.
Also the webcam is builtin, the Mic is placed well and once you download Skype from the acer website it works great.
If you brought the extra USB DVD-RW like I was given you be pleased to know that under Linux you have DVD playback out of the box. Also the DVD-RW DL powers just from the USB port so no extra cables needed.
Unimpressive Parts
LINPUS ! – For starters it’s based on Red Hat (Fedora) being a Debian guy I find this to be a negative.
Limited Range of Software, Acer isn’t supporting much they have an Acer game installed which is trial ware. Not really impressed that the full range of linux software isn’t easily available on this distro.
Security ok when you start linpus for the first time, you set the root password. Ok fair enough but there is no User password. Which is ok by it self. But guess what the user has no password but has Full SUDO rights ?! So if you ever want to change the root password on any linpus Acer try “sudo passwd”
Root Password changing
Basically I’m very happy with this Netbook, and most of my problems will be solved in the coming weeks when I get Ubuntu on to this netbook. Though I would love a way to decrease the Ubuntu boot to the 15 second range.
From the Obo November factory defects sale.
2nd Robo HI REBOUND Hand Protector Left Blue/Black
2nd Robo HI CONTROL Hand Protector Right Blue/Black
Goalie Shirt, Mesh Red XXL
Goalie Shirt, Polyester Red XXL
Goalie Stick Skinny Thing C2 Yellow 36.5″
Last weekend I heard a talk by a missionary priest Father John who had to stop his work in Africa due to a heart condition and is how living a very relaxed life with the nuns out in Bolwarra.
During his talk he mentions intolerances towards other religions, and I suppose he thought as he was talking to a group of people from Maitland he’ll give us some Maitland History, and proceeded to tell us about a riot in the 1960 due to a Presbyterian minister giving a series of sermons said to be anti-catholic which upset the Irish Catholics at the time. I spent some time googling these riots and apparently it’s not just my neighbours who had no idea of Maitland past but the Internet as well. With the only reference I could find being from this website.
In 1860 he advertised a lecture on ‘The Heathenism of Popery, Proved and Illustrated’, which upset Irish Catholics and led to the famous Maitland riots, said to have involved over 1000 people. McIntyre was injured and seventeen prosecutions followed. [ http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A050190b.htm ]
It was an interesting story hard to believe in this day and age first being that there is 1000 pissed off catholic still in Maitland. Though I’m sure there are still some Anti-Catholic sermons out there still. but all church’s these days seem to at least refrain from publicly criticising each other.
If anyone else finds something else be sure to leave a comment.
Ordered a Brand new computer with Windows XP Pro and Office Small Business 2007 this is for work mind you, I’m still personally running Ubuntu and using Latex for all my word processing needs.
Ok you get your new OEM computer what’s the first thing you do ? Yes that’s right format the blasted thing because the guys installed a trial version of Norton and other garbage. Plus it’s going into a law office so I need to know exactly what’s on the machine.
Windows install was fine it was a windows install “next, next” then restart.
Then it came to office I found the office package I was sent “Medialess License Kit – No Discs Included” Pain in the arse MS, I then set about searching MS for a download, no luck.
I pulled out the card with the key on it and on the back it says “Backup discs can be ordered using this Key at http://www.microsoft.com/office/backup ” I thought I really want it now not have to wait but it might be useful to have a CD somewhere.
OK if you googled and found this looking to find the install files they are downloadable when you put in your order for a backup disk. Once you give MS your personal details it then ask you about Shipping cost, slow down around here because it’s here you’ll find a link to once again give MS your email address. Then wait for an email. THEN and only then do you get a link to 500+ MB of office 2007 installs.
At this stage why couldn’t MS just have sold me a CD.
