Any minute now I expect some pure-blood Voldermort type to come in and blast me for switching to Linux on my desktop. The pure-blood *BSD clan would not like me saying this but man, this desktop is much more nicer to work with than my previous FreeBSD setup (god I still hate saying that). Now I know I could do all of this with FreeBSD..etc but I had it completely setup and functional in less that 2 hours (with full multimedia setup, which has yet to fail). I would normally spend about 5-6 hours just setting up my FreeBSD desktop.

Right now my biggest gripe with FreeBSD is the lack of stability I was getting with multimedia, it worked but sometimes at the most critical part of some of my work it would crap out. I dealt with it and looked for hours how to improve it, which it did slightly but not without alot of port work. So I guess what I am saying is I will be ridiculed as a Linux user, because this is working for me and thats all that matters to me!

(NO I will not put Linux on my servers, dont ask! FreeBSD and OpenBSD still have a place on my servers forever, since thats where they excel)

Here is my current desktop with Ubuntu Linux, simple clean and functional

Well I feel dirty…I have tasted the DarkSide and I am kinda digging it. I have tried Linux on my desktop instead of FreeBSD. I feel ashamed.

NOW dont get me wrong I will NOT use Linux on my servers, I have nothing against Linux but I find FreeBSD far more superior in terms of servers. I have been using Linux since Slackware2 (I think that was around 1997) Then I became a FreeBSD convert around 1999-2000, since then I have been using it for everything, servers, desktop, laptop you name it. I dabble in Linux from time to time just to keep up on things since some of my clients run Linux, so I still need to maintain Linux servers, but thats far and few between.

Recently I have been having some compatabilities issues on the desktop use of FreeBSD, mostly in terms of multimedia and web browsing which is important for my work since I deal with alot of multimedia sites. So I got frustrated and decided to give a Linux distro I have never used a try. The distro is called "Ubuntu", so far I am impressed with how easy they have made the setup, plus all of the multimedia problems I have been having are gone. Here is some observations I had setting up the distro

(these observations are coming for a die hard command-line guy, so I am kinda biased)

Install was fine, partitioning was kinda clunky, single CD install, pretty simple (i would prefer a cli partition editor)
Boot up was a bit slower that my other FreeBSD boxes, which I can deal with.
Default colors are terrible, brown would not be my first choice.
NO ROOT ACCESS, they decided to disable root in preferance of  "sudo", easily changed with "sudo passwd root"
Package system was alien to me, but then again you cant beat the bsd ports system.
Default Apps were nice.
A third party app named "Automatix" made multimedia setup easy as a snap.
Gnome window manager takes a minute to adjust to (im a kde guy, yes I know they have kubuntu)
ALL of my hardware worked including my cheap ass ati tv-wonder VE capture card.

So far those are the standout things, basically everything has worked so far. I hate to admit it but its working better on the desktop than FreeBSD, well I must go and punish myself now. I will write more about it when I test it more with work.

-out

Well it would seem that my own wife Steph who I would imagine "should" know my "signals" seems to not be able to tell my reactions to things. So I decided to make a guide for her, a chart if you will. So Steph here is your handy dandy chart to my emotions:

Normal	Happy
Pissed Off

So I hope this helps, little does she know that I AM excited about things in our life, and if you ask me I show my happiness quite well as illustrated above. So there!

If you cant tell, then give me a million dollars, and then take it from me, you will be sure to see the full range.

-out

Man I hate getting up early, I had to take Steph to a therapist appointment this morning to do paperwork. She is going to help her manage being pregnant so that after the baby is here she wont get so "post-pardom", the insurance kinda "told" her to go.

Anyway my feelings aside on some aspects of psychotherapic, we were sitting in the waiting area of the clinic and it was like entering into a scene of "Girl Interrupted". There was this lady that kept pacing, making strange noises, and breathing really loud, almost like she was holding back a temper-tantrum. She then proceeded to berate the poor lady behind the reception desk about how no one ever see’s her and none of the therapists are on time, and how she is always on time…etc etc. Then she got this strange look on her face almost as if she was going to pop, I was half expecting to enter a scene like in "Faces-of-Death part4" when the pshycopath sticks a screw-driver into a nurses neck, just then her "Doctor" came into the building…defused the second she saw him (it didnt stop the ranting but the pop look stopped). So we go in to do the paper work/interview..etc all was simple and easy, the girl seemed kind surprized on how sane Steph was (or at least thats the impression I got). Then we came back into the waiting room to make another apointment and there were now 2 guys there, one was a little on the strange side, to say the least. The other was talking to a case-manager and was being very rude to her, going on about how the court ordered him there..etc, then it turns out that both of the guys knew each other from past "sessions".

So the stange fellow come up to the other guy and starts to brag about how he was locked up in a mental ward…is this something that you brag about? And how the courts ordered these guys here…etc It felt as if it was some kind of club to be in, I guess they must get along quite well since they both have a bucket of screws loose. Needless to say I was happy to leave that waiting room.

Now my question is this, if these guys are as nuts as they seemed to me why would the court even let them walk the streets. I mean the one guy looked to be right on the verge of punching this poor case-worker. Now I know people have problems..etc but these guys seemed to be walking problems, they just were not right in the head. This kind of worries me, especially with a kid on the way, that these kind of guys walk the streets. I mean if a court ordered them to be there then obviously they did something that required a court to rule on them, doesnt sound very nice to me.

But then again I guess we cant question our judges..and whatever wisdom they may have. I blame the lawyers, anything to make a buck, sending psyhcos on the streets, rapists run free..etc  Man I dislike laywers.

-out

I took some quick pics of my new AP setup for my office connection. I had to hack the Linksys WRT54G into fitting into this little N.E.M.A box, basically all I had to do was create mounts and solder on an N-Bulkhead connection to the left antenna socket. The WRT54G is running the DD-WRT v23 firmware. So far I am pushing a solid 5.5Mbps upload & download over 2Miles, all with the help of 24dbi "grill" antennas. I am still tweaking to say the least. (the WRT54G’s have a slight ACK timing issue, but some quick hacks with a util called "dctrl" seemed to improve things)

Heres the box (I blanked the IP sticker to protect the guilty)
Click for full size image

Here is the full mast now

I am going to write up a full howto this weekend since it might help some people out on the DD-WRT forums.

later

Man what a month February has been, its been so busy I have not had time to make any posts here. I just redid our wifi connection for the office (2mile link) its been hell, but I think I have it worked out now after 2 weeks of trial and error, I will post some new pics of the setup along with a detailed howto so to speak of the setup in case your wondering.

Anywho I got to go with Steph to her first Sonogram, its was interesting to say the least (still in shock that I am going to be a father I guess). So we found out that it is a strong possiblity of a boy, so here are the scans I have right now of him.

(click thumbnail to enlarge)

Babys Feet

The Possible Male "parts" (next to the arrow)

When we get more pics I will post them here.

I guess I better get back to it. -out

Yes its been awhile since I posted anything, since it is a new year I guess its time. By the way Happy New Year.

I guess the biggest news for me this year is I found out I will be a father. Scary isnt it.
Steph is now 10 weeks pregnant, so she is in the middle of her "sick" time. its trying to say the least.
She is due sometime in August…so I have time to freak out later..hehe

speaking of freaking out I guess I need to end this post and go freak out.

AND I am going to say it…

MERRY CHRISTMAS

All of you no Christmas having pinko commies can F’ off…yes I said Merry Christmas!!! got it

This is the perfect explanation of this whole christmas problems: (warning contains “language”)

NEUROTICALLY YOURS CARTOON: NO CHRISTMAS FOR YOU

Kinda funny and annoying at the same time: crazy rabbit (c) Andrius Kirvela