1-Man IT Department

GM is like Microsoft, as Microsoft is like GM

This came across my email from my mother today. It was hilarious so I thought that I would post it. Since I have eschewed Microsoft Windows as much as I can, it makes it even more funny to me.

Enjoy!

For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on — At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated,

‘If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.’

In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating:

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics (and I just love this part ):

Crunchbang - My First Contribution

A Happy New Year to everyone who comes across this! I hope that your holidays were a wonderful time with family and friends. To start this new year, I posted my first real contribution to a Linux community this evening. I have previously stated that I am using the awesome Crunchbang Linux on my desktop machine [an older Dell Dimension 4600]. Well over the Christmas holiday, I migrated my work Lenovo ThinkPad T43 to Crunchbang as well. It ran Crunchbang 8.04 early last year, but there were some game changing problems that sent me back to vanilla Ubuntu. I was excited to see that most of the problems that I was having in 8.04 are no longer present in 08.10.01.

Well I am a huge fan of VirtualBox for my virtual machine (VM) needs. I run it on my MacBoook Pro and I use it to host my Windows XP install for my job. I wrote up an Installation and Configuration Guide for VirtualBox on a Crunchbang system, and posted it to the Crunchbang Wiki.

2009 Goal: Linux Proficiency

I am not a goals kind of guy, but I have decided that in 2009, I would like to become proficient in the Linux operating system.

What exactly does that mean? I am not really sure, and that is why I bring the question to the lists.

I have been using Linux full time on my work laptop since late 2007. So I am at about 1 year of using Linux everyday. I am light years ahead of where I was when I decided to move to Ubuntu. I have stayed with Ubuntu on my work laptop, but my desktops at home have seen Ubuntu, Crunchbang and Arch Linux on them. I have settled on Crunchbang 8.10 for my desktop, and possibly my next work laptop.

A New Linux on my Box

Last week saw my desktop go from an Arch Linux with Openbox installation to the latest version of Crunchbang Linux (#!) [version 08.10.1]. Crunchbang is the brainchild of Philip Newborough. He is a web developer and linux user based in the United Kingdom.

What is Crunchbang Linux?
According to the Crunchbang Linux website:

CrunchBang Linux is an Ubuntu based distribution featuring the lightweight Openbox window manager and GTK+ applications. The distribution has been built and customised from a minimal Ubuntu install. The distribution has been designed to offer a good balance of speed and functionality.

Workspaces Meme

From reading Aaron Toponce’s description of how he uses his workspaces in Ubuntu, I thought that I would add my Workspaces listing to the fray:

Main: Mostly Terminal work
Web: This is where Firefox/Opera and my email clients live
VirtualBox: This is where I run vbox for WinXP (at work) and other distros at home
SocNets Chat: This is where Gwibber/Twhirl & Pidgin/irssi hang out for all my social networks.

I run my desktops in a standard 1 row by 4 column setup.

Thanks, Aaron, I look forward to seeing the responses come in.

Michael

Popularity: 41% [?]

Intrepid Ibex is Coming in for a Landing

This week the Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex Beta will be released. The Final release will occur on October 30. Jorge Castro has put out a call for ISO testers, and I am taking up the mantle.

Since I am not a programmer of any kind, it is hard for me to find opportunities to contribute to the Ubuntu community. So when there are opportunities, like QA Testing, that are well within my means, I jump at the chance.

I have also gotten together with two other members of the Alabama Ubuntu LoCo to try to once again to kickstart the group to action. We have resumed our weekly IRC Meetings on Thursday nights at 9:30pm in the #ubuntu-us-al room on the Freenode network. Please come by, especially if you are an Alabama resident, and join the group so that we can spread the goodness that is Ubuntu to the whole state.

Farewell to Another Great Podcast

A little late, but still an important passing. You will notice to the right, in the podcast section, another [RIP] tag has arrived.

Chess Griffin decided to end his fabulous podcast Linux Reality at an even numbered 100 episodes in March. I have listened to most of the beginning ones, and most of the end ones, while taking a big break in the middle. I just noticed last night that he is offering a DVD with all 100 episodes that he made for sale. The cost is $30 USD, and is done through PayPal. I am not sure if there are any other options available or not. I am sure that you can ask Chess about that. All that you have to do is email him at linuxreality@gmail.com and he will send you a PayPal invoice and then send out the DVD after he receives notice of payment.

Interviewed by the Fresh Ubuntu podcast

Yesterday, I was interviewed by Harlem Quijano and Peter Nikolaidis from the Fresh Ubuntu podcast. I have been a fan of Fresh Ubuntu for quite some time, and it was an honor for them to ask me to be on. We had a good time, and I got to give a brief overview of GTD and how it may evolve technologically speaking.

Peter has began to practice GTD, and Harlem was interested in what it was all about. Hopefully, I will be able to make a return appearance so that we can delve into some more GTD topics a little more in-depth.

For now, you can go the Fresh Ubuntu site to listen: http://urltea.com/31av

Thanks to Harlem and Peter for a great time. And I hope to join them again soon.

Michael

Popularity: 85% [?]

Things on my Mind

Hello again from the Deep South of Alabama. It has been 9 days since my last update so I thought that I would jot down some things that I have been thinking about lately.

Forgot to Mention:

I did forget to mention in my last post that I successfully completed the requirements for attaining my first IT certification. I talked about it in some previous posts that I was attending the SANS Institute’s Security Essentials Bootcamp in Sept 2007. In February of 2008, I took the requisite two tests and passed with flying colors (90 and 89). So now I am a GIAC Security Essentials Certified (GSEC) professional. I was quite excited since it is my first certification. My next goal is to get a Cisco CCNA. I am putting 4 new Cisco routers in my enterprise so I think that I need to get proficient in using them. I would like to complete the study for this cert in 2008 and have the cert by the end of the 1st quarter of 2009.

Ubuntu Twitterers join @pulseofubuntu

Ubuntu member, Jorge Castro, put up a great writeup about a new movement to consolidate the growing number of Ubuntu twitterers. I know that Christer Edwards and Dan Trevino were some of the first folks to talk about setting this up.

From Jorge’s blog:

One random day Christer Edwards said something along the lines of “we should organize all Ubuntu people on twitter and put that to good use.” Poor Christer made the mistake of having a great open ended idea, so I convinced him to implement it. :)


Pulse of Ubuntu is a twitter account that follows people around from the Ubuntu community. As you can see, there’s already a good list of people being followed.

You can check out the Pulse of Ubuntu site to see the conglomeration of Ubuntu folks. Not everything said directly relates to ubuntu. Maybe there is a way to parse it out by using hashtags (#ubuntu). I am an idea man, and not a programmer, so I will leave that up to smarter people than me. **hint hint Christer **