Madgravity » Computers

Thursday 27

madgravity — Fri, 28 May 2010 07:21:28 +0000

Thursday 27- I did my stretches, dang windy this morning.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 52 and 81 degrees, winds W/SW 8 to 23 with gusts up to 39 MPH, humidity around 23 percent, clear skies in the morning but overcast later in the day.
According to the National Weather Service: “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 78. West northwest wind between 11 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 53. West northwest wind between 11 and 20 mph, with gusts as high as 26 mph.”
Well the wind was really blowing this morning but that’s alright because I have stuff to do around the house.
I took the 4Gig SSD drive out of my Dell Mini 9 and put in a 32Gig SSD drive that had Windows 7 I wasn’t using and installed Ubuntu 10.04 on it. After messing around installing drivers for the wireless and got that going I was up and running. Actually it seems like a nice OS so far now that it has enough disk space. I installed Adobe Flash and was able to watch Youtube.com and Hulu.com on it.
Ginger dropped by with a book for me called “Star Trek: Prime Directive” (1990) by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. I’ll read that when I get done with the Jack Higgins book I’m currently reading.
I watched a couple of episodes of “Warehouse 13” to see what it was about. It wasn’t too bad. It’s about two Secret Service agents that look for lost artifacts that have special powers and store them in a government warehouse hidden in South Dakota for safe keeping.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Tuesday 11

madgravity — Wed, 12 May 2010 07:36:53 +0000

Tuesday 11- I did my stretches; another wild and windy day!
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 49 and 65 degrees, winds NW at 28 to 30 with guests up to 45 MPH, humidity around 19 percent, clear skies with a few clouds on the horizon.
According to the National Weather Service: “Wednesday: Sunny, with a high near 77. North northwest wind between 7 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 55. West wind between 8 and 11 mph becoming calm.”
I stayed inside because of the high winds and loaded a Linux OS on my Asus EEE 701 netbook but it didn’t have sound and I didn’t like how it ran so I installed the original Linux on it, did all the updates, and it ran perfectly.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today” the Atmospheric Composition of Uranus and Neptune; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” Transcription Regulatory Proteins.
Joel Levy came by for a short visit and brought me a steak dinner, yumm!
I read a few more chapters in “A Season in Hell” by Jack Higgins until Roger Toombs came by with his computer to see how my new Wifi Broadband works; he liked it very much.
I watched “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” (1964). I never saw it before and I thought it was time that I did. A very excellent movie!!!!!
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Sunday 09

madgravity — Mon, 10 May 2010 07:57:17 +0000

Sunday 09- I did my stretches. Lots of wind outside!
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 56 and 88 degrees, winds W at 14 to 33with guests up to 50 MPH, humidity around 14 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Monday: Sunny, with a high near 75. Breezy, with a west northwest wind between 16 and 22 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Monday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 51. Breezy, with a west wind between 15 and 23 mph, with gusts as high as 32 mph.”
Dang windy outside! I stayed in the house playing with the Wifi broadband on my computers. I was finally able to update my MacBook which had a 1.7Gig update and would have taken me weeks or months on dialup to download, but on the broadband did it in about two hours. I got Skype going and called about everybody I knew so I could test it. I have all these computers and stuff which runs off of Wifi that’s been sitting around for years collecting dust; it was like that movie “Independence Day” where that captured flying saucer that was in Area 51 started to come alive when the aliens came to Earth. Well that’s what happened to my computers. Oh what fun I’m having. I spent all day testing this and that see what it could do. I am a very happy camper!!!
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Saturday 08

madgravity — Sun, 09 May 2010 07:44:25 +0000

Saturday 08- I did my stretches.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 56 and 88 degrees, winds NW at 10 18 MPH, humidity around 11 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 80. Windy, with a west wind 6 to 9 mph increasing to between 28 and 31 mph. Winds could gust as high as 47 mph. Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 49. Windy, with a west wind 27 to 30 mph decreasing to between 16 and 19 mph. Winds could gust as high as 45 mph.”
A woman came to my door. Her name was Wilda from Calgary Alberta Canada. She had bought property near me a few years ago on EBay and was asking about our area. I showed her around my place while yakking about our beautiful desert.
The service installer from MojaveWifi.com arrived around 2:30pm and spent the next couple of hours setting up my broadband connection. He did a fine job of it; climbing up ladders, drilling holes, stringing cables, and setting up my system in the house. MojaveWifi.com is a new company run by my friends and neighbors Mike and Stevie Villarreal who’ve been distinguished members of the Copper Mountain Mesa community for more than 40 years. Their business offers Dial-up, DSL, and Wireless Internet services throughout most of the Basin, covering Morongo Valley, Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, Twenty-nine Palms, Landers, and even Wonder Valley is coming online soon. They want to make their customers exceedingly happy. In fact, it’s part of their motto: “We Strive to Exceed Expectations!” Some of the benefits you’ll see with Mojavewifi.com include: There are no term-lengths or contracts for service. They won’t bind you in for a year or two, and so there won’t be any of those awful Early Termination Fees, either. Also, they don’t put “caps” on your service like some other ISP’s do. (760) 362-1373. Be nice to see a local business succeed! (I thought I’d give them a little advertising here for their new business)
Once the service installer had gone I was left to my own devices and promptly went to Hulu.com and watched one episode of “Fringe” and two Episodes of “Firefly”; tomorrow I’ll try Skype.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Friday 07

madgravity — Sat, 08 May 2010 07:47:03 +0000

Friday 07- I did my stretches, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 59 and 84 degrees, gentle winds, humidity around 8 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 87. West northwest wind between 6 and 11 mph. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 56. West wind between 14 and 17 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph.”
I went over to my vacationing friend’s house to make sure everything was okay. When I was backing out I hit a pointed rock and it punctured the sidewall of my left rear tire. I spent ten minutes replacing it with the spare.
I did some more house cleaning and I thought I’d be stuck doing that all day when I got a call from Karin asking if she could bring over her laptop for me to fix because it doesn’t run that good. Her laptop took forever to boot up and I had to wait as Norton anti-virus did whatever it does. First thing I did was removed Norton and then installed Avast anti-virus; things were much improved. Got online and Karin said that it was running much faster than it had before. While I was on her laptop I went to the Copper Mountain Mesa website to see how it loads. Oh no, it didn’t render very well. I use Firefox all the time and I was looking at my website on Internet Explorer for the first time in a long time and you have to scroll across horizontally to read anything, dang! You are supposed to check your website on different browsers to see if it renders correctly. Last time I did it was on IE7 and all was well; I didn’t change anything on the website so I figured it was okay, big mistake! So after I went on my evening walk I spent much of the evening trying to figure out what was wrong and rewriting HTML until it rendered correctly; I finished around 9pm. So now folks can go to the website, not get eyestrain, and it won’t look like a piece of crap on Internet Explorer! Those on Firefox won’t notice the difference.
I started reading a new Jack Higgins book called “A Season in Hell”. I don’t think I’ll write a blow by blow on the books I read anymore. It takes a lot of my time, nobody really commented on them anyways, and it made my journal too large for anyone who just wanted a quick read.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Thursday 29

madgravity — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 07:41:22 +0000

Thursday 29- I did my stretches, dang windy outside!
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 45 and 59 degrees, NW winds 22-36 with gusts up to 50 MPH 0r more, humidity around 27 percent, mostly clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Friday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 66. North northwest wind between 16 and 18 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Friday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 47. North northwest wind between 11 and 16 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph.”
I started off the day by updating the Copper Mountain Mesa Website but I didn’t upload it yet because it’s only Thursday; I’ll do that tomorrow.
The wind blew all day long so I stayed inside. I really wanted to start working on the patio but not in this wind. So I messed around with my computers. I ran Puppy Linux on my Asus Netbook and it actually found my USRobotics USB modem! Puppy Linux is on a live CD and I tried to install it on the hard drive but the GRUB boot loader couldn’t find it or probably I’m doing something wrong. This is an older version of Puppy so I’m downloading a new release which will take forever on dialup.
Too dang windy to go for my evening walk so I stayed inside and listened to Astro 10: General Astronomy: The Geometry of the Universe, and Einstein’s Biggest Blunder?
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today” more about Saturn’s moon Titan; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” RNA Polymerase and Transcription.
I started a new book “Sheba” (1995) by Jack Higgins. It takes place in Nazi Germany in March 1939 as Hitler begins his plans to invade Poland on September1. He wants to send the Brits a message by blowing up the Suez Canal and assigns it to an Admiral to come up with an idea on how to accomplish this before the invasion begins. The Admiral and his aid come up with a plan to have a German base at a hidden archeological site call Shea in the Arabian Desert and use a sea plane to carry mines and high explosives to the Suez. They use Spanish SS officers to purchase a Catalina and start a business in Dahrein to carry out their sinister plan. Meanwhile there’s an American archeologist who uses his boat to smuggle in the Gulf of Aden. He is met by this lovely lady who wants to hire him to find her lost her lost husband.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 28

madgravity — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 08:28:11 +0000

Wednesday 28- I did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike- no wind yet!
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 55 and 77 degrees, WSW winds 14-26 with gusts up to 45 MPH, humidity around 20 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 64. Windy, with a northwest wind between 24 and 34 mph, with gusts as high as 48 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 47. Breezy, with a northwest wind between 20 and 28 mph, with gusts as high as 39 mph.”
I took some measurements of the patio that I decided to go ahead and do besides what I’ve done already. I went to town to collect some pre-algebra books I order that have arrived at the post office, but on the way there I stopped off at the library to purchase a few soft cover books that I’ll take home and read; it’s been almost five months that I haven’t watched commercial TV and I need something to fill the void. I’m actually getting more of the stuff I want to do done and don’t seem to miss the TV at all. The pre-algebra books are going to help me review what I have forgotten since college; I really need it to work out the problems in astronomy. Anyways, I got to Home Depot and got all the materials I hopefully need to complete my project.
I got home in time for my evening walk and listened to Astro 10: General Astronomy: The Age of the Universe. About 13.1 billion years give or take a few million.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today” more about Saturn’s rings and their structure; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” started chapter 6: Transcription in Prokaryotes.
I read the preface to both the pre-algebra and its workbook.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Monday 26

madgravity — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 08:24:12 +0000

Monday 26- I did my stretches, ran two miles, and lifted weights.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 56 and 86 degrees, light breeze, humidity around 16 percent, clear skies. It was a very nice day outside!
According to the National Weather Service: “Tuesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 85. Breezy, with a calm wind becoming southwest between 26 and 29 mph. Winds could gust as high as 44 mph. Tuesday Night: Mostly cloudy, with a low around 55. Breezy, with a west southwest wind 25 to 28 mph decreasing to between 10 and 13 mph. Winds could gust as high as 41 mph.”
Another lazy day for me, I just didn’t feel like doing much of anything so I just spent the time messing with my old TRS Model 100. The M100 is one of the first laptops made way back in 1983. I downloaded some user manuals for it that I found online and spent much time going over those and getting reacquainted with the M100. Back in the day I used to program it in Basic and store them on cassette tape; it’s a very old machine!
I went for my evening walk and listened to Astro 10: General Astronomy: In the Belly of the Beast.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today” Saturn’s interior and magnetosphere; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” review of chapter 5.
I’ve been watching this dove egg that’s been abandoned in a nest just outside my door since yesterday seeing if the mother dove would come back. She hasn’t, so I brought the egg inside tonight and put it under an electric blanket. We’ll have to see if it survives and hatches; I don’t know what I’ll do if it does. Maybe something on dove parenting could be found online.
I read a few chapters of “Knight of the Word”. Nest is being chased by this demon that works at the women’s shelter where Ross works. An investigative reported has been given anomalous letters of swindling going on at the shelter that implicates Ross (but we know he is being framed). And as I put the book down before writing this and getting ready to call it a night, the women’s shelter has burnt down to the ground.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Welcome to the Month of April

madgravity — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 08:44:24 +0000

Welcome to the Month of April- I did my stretches, ran a mile, lifted weights, and rode my bike.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 38 and 60 degrees, NW winds 8 to 19 MPH, humidity around 17 percent, clear skies.
According to the National Weather Service: “Friday: Sunny, with a high near 69. West northwest wind between 13 and 16 mph becoming calm. Winds could gust as high as 24 mph. Friday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 44. West southwest wind between 11 and 18 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph.”
I did some yard work and watered the plants. Then I messed around with my computers for a spell. The Windows 7 Ultimate product key that I bought off EBay a few months ago turned out to be bogus. I found out while doing an update. I had to reload the whole system from scratch and revert back to Windows 7 Starter. I should have known better, but I’m only out $11. I’m sure the culprit is long gone. I only fell for it because he told me he had left over product keys from his business that went belly up and needed to get rid of them. Oh well, live and learn!
I went for my evening walk listening to Astro 10: General Astronomy: The Moon, Mercury, and Venus.
I read aloud from the textbooks: “Astronomy Today” where I started the chapter on Mars; “The Cell: a Molecular Approach” more about the sequencing of Yeast Genomes.
I read a few more chapters in “Skeleton Coast” by Clive Cussler. It’s about an old freighter that had its guts torn out and replaced with a lot of high tech equipment, a reinforced hull to withstand enemy fire, a state of the art engine that’s powered by salt water and electromagnetic fields that can bring the 560 foot vessel up to 50 Nauts, and a high tech weapons system. All of this is hidden beneath the exterior of the rusty and ramshackle old freighter. They (the corporation made up of ex-military Special Forces) use this vessel called the Oregon for special operations when they are called upon by governments to do the dirty work that they can’t legally perform. Right now they are selling illegal arms to rebels in the Congo. The AK47s have hidden in them transmitters so the rebels can be traced to where they hide in the jungle. The rebels traded them for diamonds and are trying to get the diamonds back by force by attacking the Oregon.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night.

Wednesday 31

madgravity — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 08:42:41 +0000

Wednesday 31- I did my stretches and ran two miles.
Today’s Weather was: Temps of around 41 and 61 degrees, west winds 12 to 34 MPH, humidity around 33 percent, cumulonimbus clouds here and there but no rain for us.
According to the National Weather Service: “Thursday: A 30 percent chance of showers after 11am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 58. Northwest wind between 6 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 39. West northwest wind between 8 and 11 mph.”
As soon as I was done with my run the wind started to blow really hard and the temperature dropped ten degrees or so. I decided that I’ll just stay inside, kick back, and mess around online surfing the web.
I came across some articles on old computer that caught my interest. A few of them I had or still have. I like old computers. I have a Radio Shack TRS Model 100-one of the first laptops. This is my third one that I bought five years ago. The first one I sold, and the second one I bought in the late 80s is still around and running but has a broken keyboard. Over at Club 100 they have a new device that plugs into the TRS 100 that accepts SD cards! That way you can put all your programs and files on it and transfer files to other computers. Pretty cool, but its $195, yikes! I don’t think I’ll be getting one of those soon. There is a chip I might get that is called the Ultimate ROM II that has a word processor and other productivity software I might get for $35.
I read and finished “Chasing the Dime” by Michael Connelly. Somehow our hero gets out of his predicament: murder, burglary, obstruction of justice, and an assortment of other crimes. It seems like the big pharmaceuticals had set him up so they could steal his formula that could change the way drugs are made by using molecular biology. It was well worth the read!
Ginger dropped me off a new book to read by Clive Cussler called “Skeleton Coast” and I read a few chapters of that. Cussler is one of my favorite authors.
I did my stretches, practiced my guitar, wrote to my journal, posted it to the web, and called it a night. Goodbye to March!