Monthly Archive for August, 2005

Use Linux? Why?

Published
by
Mark
on Wednesday 31st August 2005
in Software
. Closed

When browsing del.icio.us/popular today, I found a great article on why you shouldn’t use Linux. My favorite reason is #2: Linux is a pain to set up.

It’s true. After all, with modern Linuxes like Xandros Desktop or SimplyMEPIS, you need to put in a CD or DVD, press the enter button, give your computer a name, and enter a password for the administrator account.

Gosh, that’s hard.

On the other hand, with Windows, all you have to do is put in a CD or DVD, do all the above, and then immediately download all the available patches. After all, Symantec has found that an unpatched Windows PC connected to the Internet will last only a few hours before being compromised.

Unpatched Linux systems? Oh, they last months, but what’s the fun of that?

After spending the last three months setting up Windows for almost a thousand computers, you’d better believe that Windows, too, is a pain in the ass to setup. After installing Windows, it’s update after update. In fact, on the majority of the computer models I’m using, there are more than thirty patches to install after Service Pack 2 is isntalled!

While I had some difficulty setting up Linux on a file server at home, it was nothing compared to what I have to do to setup and patch a Windows box.

"Cool" nerd?

Published
by
Mark
on Monday 29th August 2005
in Uncategorized
. 3 Comments

While I should be eating dinner right now, I decided it would be better to take the quiz that Hersch did so we could compare our results. What I’m trying to figure out is how nerds ever became cool

Modern, Cool Nerd
73 % Nerd, 65% Geek, 34% Dork

For The Record:

  • A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
  • A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
  • A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn’t use to be cool, but in the 90’s that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn’t quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

Congratulations!

Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you’re interested in either of the following:

Thanks Again! — THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

Non-Cokes explained

Published
by
Mark
on Thursday 25th August 2005
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

I came across this link a while ago, and I’ve referenced it in conversation at least three or four times since then. It’s an interesting, and short, read about Coke’s diet derivatives.

Enjoy!

AdSense not making sense

Published
by
Mark
on Thursday 25th August 2005
in General
. Closed

I just got back from picking up Chris’s car at work (don’t ask), and I sat down to do some reading before going to bed. I browsed over to my page to see if there were any comments or spams or anything (sadly, there were none - not even spam!), when I saw my Google ads. I wondered why it was showing ads for lowering your cholesterol and other stupid health stuff. I scanned my home page and I didn’t see a thing about my cholesterol, or the treadmill, or anything else even remotely related. As great as Google has been for searching, sometimes it does fall short of being overall great. And this is just one of those times.

Also, if anyone’s wondering, AdSense is really not the money-maker it’s claimed to be if you don’t have a constant barrage of people willing to click on the links. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much from it, and not surprisingly, that’s what I got.

Home before 7

Published
by
Mark
on Wednesday 24th August 2005
in General
. Closed

Well, I’ve been away from the blog for about a week now because of the start of school. Those 12-hour days are killing me mentally, and they’re not doing me very well physically, either. With today being my first day coming home before 7pm in a week, and only my third since August 7th, I decided to relax a little and do some non-thinking. This is a change from the past few nights of playing Settlers of Catan.

When the others (Scott, Grant, Jessi and Chris) went out geocaching around town, I decided to spend my first early night home just relaxing. I read some Red Rabbit and watched a little CSI. Then, I finally checked my e-mail and started fooling around on my computer again, when I eventually opened up Photoshop and created a new header for the blog. With a little quick help from the Kubrick FAQ, I was able to get rid of the text header and make the entire graphic a link. So, that’s how I spent my evening off.

Intelligent falling?

Published
by
Mark
on Wednesday 17th August 2005
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

I almost crapped my pants when I first saw this headline: Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New ‘Intelligent Falling’ Theory. Then I realized what it was, and I laughed (out loud - lol :-) )

I’m lost

Published
by
Mark
on Sunday 14th August 2005
in General and Software
. 1 Comment

I attempted to enable RAID on my Windows XP box at home after successfully doing it on my Ghost server at work. I say "attempted" because at home I was not quite as successful as I was at work. This resulted in some emergency operating on my computer: moving important files to other drives or computers and re-installing Windows. In the process, I managed to forget to copy my Outlook data files, and now I am without my contact database.

So, for the few of you in the special group that intersects the people in my lost contact database and the people who read my blog, please e-mail me your contact information at mark [at] ask-mark.com. I would greatly appreciate if you could e-mail me the contact information for mutual friends, as well.

I must go mourn my loss again.