Monthly Archives: June 2009

With the Micheal Jackson, we have completed the trifecta for this week.  I never cared for his music much, but being born in 1974, it puts almost all of my childhood in the Jackson era.  His videos really changed the entertainment world, and his musical talents were evident to even his critics.  His later antics, well, really tainted his legacy. 

In happier news, Glenn’s third birthday is next week.  He talking in longer sentences now.  He loves to repeat what you say, but he comes up with novel, 7 to 10 word sentences on his own, which are more or less grammatically correct.  He is really into trains now, we will have to head of to Heston Steam Museum again.  He will really appreciate the choo choos now.

The weather has been pretty bad here, too darn warm too quickly.  I think I need a cold beverage as I type this.
 

Been trying out the netbook more, now that I have Linux on it.  Ubuntu is a little quirky, but it is pretty intuitive.  The simplified desktop is very nice and perfectly suited to the small netbook screen.  I did a little test today:

Ubuntu:

Cold boot to desktop, no disk activity, 43 seconds.

Time to load Firefox, first load 4 seconds.

Time from cold boot to online, able to open a web page, 48 seconds.

Windows XP:

Cold boot to desktop, no disk activity 65 seconds

Time to load Firefox, first load, 17 seconds.

Time from cold boot to online, able to open a web page, 82 seconds.

Mind you, this is on identical hardware, dual boot system.

Kinda telling, don’t you think?

The image at the top of this post was taken using the webcam built into the netbook and resized using the GIMP.  This whole post was done on the ideapad.

These netbooks are too much fun.

Not too much happening.  Mother in law was over yesterday.  She is possibly the slowest Scrabble player on Earth.  Went my sister’s new apartment today.  Helped her build 2 Ikea pieces and get her cable Internet up and running.  It’s a nice place, reminds me of some apartments I have had.  Classic Chicago apartment.  Hardwood floors, nine foot ceilings and a some charming features like built in cabinets.  The zoned parking really helps.  I hated living in a non zoned area.  Nowhere to park.

In geek news, we are trying out Ubuntu Linux 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope?) netbook remix on the ideapad.  It is really really fast on that hardware.  I think all the software was recompiled for the Atom processor and all the hardware drivers are installed (like the webcam.)  It goes from cold to fully loaded (NO DISK ACTIVITY) in 42 seconds.  Windows XP is getting a little long in the tooth and not that fast or stable on the ideapad.  It even imported all the documents, bookmarks and even the desktop image from Windows XP.  Nice touch guys.  I see why Microsoft is terrified of Netbooks.  No profit and Linux runs circles around it on low end hardware and it forced them keep XP for years longer than they wanted.