I just discovered an issue with the SuSE (http://www.suse.com) 9.2, KDE (http://www.kde.org) 3.4, and
OpenOffice.org-1.1.3-kde combination.  I JUST discovered
this!  Shows how often I use OpenOffice.org.  But anyway,
there's a problem that makes the save and save as dialogs crash
everytime you try them.

The solution?  Simply add:

[Development]

AutoCheckAccelerators=false

to ~/.kde/share/config/kdeglobals

Or:

# /opt/kde3/share/config/kdefilepickerrc

#

# OpenOffice.org's KDE (http://www.kde.org) file selector configuration

#

# This avoids crashes when using OpenOffice.org with KDE (http://www.kde.org)

# file dialogs and KDE (http://www.kde.org) >= 3.4

#

# Move this file to $KDE (http://www.kde.org)DIR/share/config/kdefilepickerrc

# or merge it to an existing configuration.

[Development]

AutoCheckAccelerators=false

This is filed at: http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=100849#c2 (http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=100849#c2)

I ordered this hp notebook computer from this company called off-leasecomputers.com 10 days ago.

I received no confirmation after my order.  So, I had to e-mail
them to see if the order went through.  They replied that it had.
A day or so later, my credit card gets charged…waiting.

Last week, I figured it would arrive maybe Tuesday or Wednesday (I
didn't pay for the fast shipping).  Waiting…waiting…Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday…waiting…

Today, I e-mailed them like 30 times with no response.  This dude
finally calls me and starts his sentence with, Well, see what
happened was… and I knew it was bad news from that point. 
Apparently, it was out of stock.  Instead of calling me
immediately to let me know, they charged my card and then waited 10
days to see if their next shipment would come.

He was calling me to offer me a substitute (IBM Thinkpad).  He
said that it had the same specs, except it was like 0.1 GHZ
slower.  So, I said, well, how much?  He said, Same
price.   Ugh!  After all you've put me through? 

Then he said, but I can have it shipped out
tomorrow.   And I said, You mean it will arrive here tomorrow.

No, he said, You're in Connecticut, right?  So, it'll probably be there the next business day.  

Connecticut?  Do you even know who I am?  You loser!  No, cancel my order and prepare to be blog (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog)ged.

If anyone out there can sell me a laptop with decent customer service, let me know.

For any of you out there who are thinking of challenging a book, try reading it first.

I found a very strange post on OSNEWS (http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=10089) today.  It is entitled, XOrg Catches Up with Longhorn/Mac OS X's 3D Desktop Acceleration

It is talking about some X.org (http://www.x.org) innovations with OpenGL, composite,
etc.  Am I the only one who wonders about this?  First of all
Longhorn is not even out yet, so I fail to see how X.org (http://www.x.org) has to catch
up with it.

Secondly, Mac OS X definitely has some eye candy that X desktops did
not have in the past, but the Mac desktop is still not free and not
customization-friendly. 

Finally, I have proven that this technology is here and now for
X.  Although some naysayers have described the xcomposite features
of X.org (http://www.x.org) to be buggy and unstable KDE (http://www.kde.org) 3.4 has done away with those
concerns.  Please see my screenshots (../../../content/view/92/1/) for confirmation.  Since I downloaded KDE (http://www.kde.org) 3.4, X has been stable.

I have been able to watch videos and play video games.  I have the
latest Nvidia driver (don't try it wit ATI — not X.org (http://www.x.org)'s fault. 
ATI seems not to be committed to Linux (http://www.linux.org) the way Nvidia is).  No, my
desktop is not exactly like OS X.  That's the point.  I don't
like everything on OS X.  It's the freedom of choice that matters.

I think it's time Mac and Windows catch up to X and release the source code for their desktops.

Here is a great site about educational open source software.  They
have an index listing hundreds of free and open source software for
primary and secondary schools.  The index lists everything from
games to study aides.

School Forge

I'm checking shelves today.  I know it sounds pretty mundane for the head librarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librarian) (read: only librarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librarian))
to do such a thing, but stuff is coming up missing too often, only to
be found pushed in between two unrelated books upside down.  My
assistants just aren't cutting it.  I've let go two or three in
the past two weeks.

It's also giving me time to think about how the employment game really
works.  I was reminded of this when I read about that Harvard
ongoing lawsuit. 
Although many are describing the discrimination against her as sex
bias or even racial discrimination, I think that there is more to it
than that.

How many people have been turned down for a job for being too
pretty?  Too skinny? Too ugly, too fat, too smart, too dumb, too
tall, too short, too black, not black enough, etc.  There is a
shortage of jobs, so employers come up with the dumbest reasons to pass
over qualified candidates.  Invariably, the person who gets the
job is someone who knows someone.  It's not technically nepotism
because they're usually not related.  Their kid might just play
with the boss' kid, or their parents have connections.   Yes, the
job market is simply unfair, and employers are imperfect people charged with performing subjective tasks.

So, what is this woman's true motivation?  I don't think it's so
much that they discriminated against her (although they probably
did) or that she was too pretty (because she probably isn't), but it
is most likely because they shafted her 13 times.  13 times she
was up for promotion and was passed over by less qualified
people?  Umm, hello?  People go postal over a lot less than
that.  No job is worth it.

The problem is that they can think of any lame reason not to let you
succeed, and it might just be because they don't like you.  The
amazing part is that this woman let it go on for so long.  It's
like the abused wife who allows herself to be beaten day in and day
out.  Does suing your husband do any good?  Nope.  It's
time to stand up and hit back.

My students completed their web site.  It is called Planet Empire (http://planetempire.lanterntorch.org/). 
They used all free software to create it: SuSE (http://www.suse.com) Linux (http://www.linux.org), Nvu for the web
design, GIMP to make the images, and of course KDE (http://www.kde.org) as their desktop.

Hey I apologize.  I mentioned KDE (http://www.kde.org) 3.4 and failed to provide
screenshots.  So, here is my highly customized desktop at home:

new mouseover effects on the panel (../../../images/stories/kde3.4screenshot1.jpg)

check out KPDF (../../../images/stories/kde3.4screenshot3.jpg)  You can now select text, copy it to clipboard, or
even have text-to-speech read it!  And it's 18,000 times faster
than Acrobat Reader!

I just got KDE (http://www.kde.org) 3.4 for SuSE (http://www.suse.com).  It works perfectly, and it is the best desktop environment, period.

One improvement that I really like is KDM.  KDM used to be wimpy
compared to Gnome (http://www.gnome.org)'s GDM.  Well, now KDM is themeable (is that a
word?).  You can apply GDM themes, except, KDM does not support
username-password in one form box. 

Anyway, I figured out how to hack the GDM themes to make them work with
KDM.  It's actually quite simple, just an XML file to edit. 
But, if any of yous out there need a theme converted, just let me
know.  I'll do it for free, but it has to be clean.

The Media Fair is now two days away.  My kids, as I mentioned
before, are making a web site about planets.  It is nearly
complete.  I'm very proud of them.  When it's done, I'll have
it hosted on this server, insha'Allah.

OK, so I am going to try to bring back the downloads section
soon.  There are scripts and other knick-knacks that I've been
working on lately.  For instance, I have a lot of hosting clients
who want Mambo (http://www.mamboserver.com) (especially after I suggest it).  So, I wrote a
shell script that will automatically download it, chmod files where
necessary, and prepare it for install.  It doesn't install it
because it's a web based install.  Plus users have to setup their
own MySQL (http://www.mysql.com/) databases.  Nevertheless, it really saves me time.

Anyway, back to the Media Fair.  I needed a laptop to show the
web site to the judges.  So, I borrowed my father's.  It has
Windows XP on it (ewwwww).  So, I managed to install Apache (http://www.apache.org), PHP (http://www.php.net/),
and MySQL (http://www.mysql.com/) on it (cool). 

I want to buy a laptop.  In fact, I even have one picked out, but
alas, I am but a pauper.  Perhaps when I finally save up the
money, I'll appreciate it that much more. The life of a Poor Righteous Teacher. **sigh**