Way back, in the days of Windows 3.x and Windows 95 when Netscape ruled the web and there was an upstart called Internet Explorer that was dubious at best (and has been dubious ever since....), I saw someone somewhere recommend a small, new web browser called Opera. It was so small the installer fit on a (3.5 inch) floppy and it had a great feature ( Read more... )

I've been using Xfce for several years now. First as it was light enough to allow an even-then ancient laptop to be if not speedy, at least not overly sluggish. Then as it got out of my way, exactly the that GNOME and KDE didn't. Alas, something about is now getting in my way and I haven't yet found a way to turn it off - and I have looked. Perhaps ( Read more... )

I've been running Linux of one sort or another as my primary ("desktop") operating system for over a decade. While I am not The Ultimate Linux Geek or such, I have at least a fair idea of what I am doing and going back to Windows makes my teeth itch. There has been significant progress in making Linux readily usable for "the general public." While ( Read more... )

March 20, 2003 was the day I started using a new 120 GB IDE hard drive. That drive was what the first belgian used as long as that machine lasted. When that machine had multiple failures a fews ago, the drive was one of, if not the only, surviving piece that ran in the new belgian. The drive was replaced by a new, larger capacity (1 TB) SATA model ( Read more... )

As mentioned a bit ago, I've spent the last few months slowly building up a fairly impressive machine for scarletcharnel. To satisfy any curiosity, the hardware is this ( Read more... )

For some time now, since at least August, I've been acquiring parts and building up a computer (for scarletcharnel). The hardware was the easy part. I had a bit of a time with a Linux (Xubuntu) install to test things out. I purposely held off on installing Windows (not my choice of OS, but this isn't my machine) until I had all the hardware that it would have ( Read more... )

Now longer back than I care to think about (which is only August) I ordered a Solid State Drive, figuring it'd be good to have in one machine and get some experience with SSD setup. I figured I'd have to do some special partitioning and filesystem tweaking, but it would mainly be a matter of "plug it in and it works." That's how it seemed to start ( Read more... )

Phase One: Done and enjoyed.
Phase Two: Done.
Phase Three: Done - though I might need to re-arrange things for better (lower) height.
Phase Four: Pending.

Belgian is my primary computer and is in the office. I had been using a dual-screen setup on it with a 23 inch widescreen main monitor for most stuff, and an old 15 inch off to the side for more text based things. Downstairs, I have percheron set up so I can us it while on the treadmill and that use the 19 inch monitor I repaired last year. ( Read more... )

I'd been looking at getting a USB and possibly wireless headset for a while, so that I could use Skype (or similar, perhaps) and also listen to stuff in the office without it bugging Jay. Last week a deal came up and a Logitech ClearChat headset (refurbished). For $40 (shipped), rather than $100 I decided to go for it. It arrived this Wednesday ( Read more... )