Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Independent News

Sunday, September 23rd, 2007

Tired of the same US government spoonfed “news” from Fox News, CNN, Newsweek, and most other mainstream media?
Amy Goodman of Democracy Now
Here is my personal list of independent news sources:

Democracy Now
Black Agenda Report
The Nation
Common Dreams
AntiWar.com
truthout
IndyMedia

These are, I’m sure, just a few of the great ones out there. Feel free to comment and add to the list. I try to avoid pro-Democrat news sources just as much as the pro-Republican ones. I just want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Posted in Politics, Technology, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Compiz-Fusion: 3D desktop future?

Saturday, July 14th, 2007

Screenshot of BerylIf you have been following the 3D desktop revolution, by now you know that the Beryl Project and the Compiz project are merging back together not long after Beryl first forked from Compiz.

I was one who originally left Compiz with the Beryl crowd. It was just more exciting: more plugins, better community support, and eventually it developed into something more polished and easy to use (handy configuration utility, including a tray icon for easy starting and stopping).

Compiz-Fusion is intended to eventually blend the best of both worlds, and there have been many people on the web already singing its praises. So, I decided to give it a try on my Kubuntu Feisty box.

Needless to say, I was very disappointed. Many of the problems that plagued compiz when I used it over a year ago are still present. It’s still much slower than Beryl, and, worst of all, there is still no fool-proof system tray icon. To top it all off, it’s still largely Gnome-centered.

So, I’ve decided to stay with Beryl until at least October. Why October you ask? By then, we might have a seriously working beta or release candidate of KDE4, which will hopefully ship with a new native KWIN composite system. At that time, I will kiss Beryl and Compiz goodbye, God willing.

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Return to Geexbox

Tuesday, July 10th, 2007

Geexbox boot screenWhen I first started my HTPC project, Geexbox was my distro of choice. But when we got a widescreen TV, Geexbox, which didn’t use X.Org at all, could not display widescreen resolutions. In that interval, I tried both Freevo and MythTV (running on Ubuntu), but things have never run as smoothly and easily as they did on Geexbox.

After waiting for many months for high definition support, geexbox has made an unofficial release, which I have tried and am very pleased. It’s like coming home after a long journey.

If you haven’t tried Geexbox (a LiveCD and installable home media center operating system), give a whirl. You can burn their preconfigured ISO to CD or use their simple ISO generator to add features and customize your version. You won’t be disappointed.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

No iPhone for Me

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

Anti-iPhoneBefore anyone asks, no I did not get an iPhone, nor do I plan to. The telephone, since its inception, is the most intrusive device in existence. If I want to talk to you, I’ll contact you myself. Even email is not as intrusive. I can answer my email whenever I want. With a phone, people expect to be able to contact you wherever you are, whenever they want.

I do have a mobile phone…a cheap one, just so my wife can contact me wherever I am, whenever she wants. That is her right, not yours.

As for the other features on the iPhone, well, my computer can do more on a bigger screen. And of course, the software on my computer is free and open source.

Now, just for the heck of it, I hereby initiate the anti-iPhone movement.

Posted in Technology, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Farfour the Martyr

Saturday, June 30th, 2007

The militant-mickey, Farfour, famous in the Palestinian territories for teaching children via Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV, was mercilessly beaten to death by an Israeli soldier on live television. (That link goes to an article, not video footage. Sorry).

But, before you get out your flag-burning material, you should know that it was in the script. The show is being canceled to “make room for new programmes.”

The craziest part of all: the above was not satire.

Posted in Politics, Uncategorized | No Comments »