http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php Copyright 2009, The Jonas The Jonas en-US SPHPBLOG 0.4.8 http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry071228-125058 Toshiba Satellite U300.

I'm self-justifying this on the basis of needing a "work" laptop for my consulting sideline. So far it's working for me, although friends and family aren't buying it.

It came preinstalled with Windows Vista and no doubt some other garbage to jack up the selling price. I booted this long enough to know the following:

1) Vista is a suckass eye-candy replacment for XP.

2) All the hardware seemed to work.

3) Vista is a suckass eye-candy replacement for XP.

Needless to say I quickly replaced Vista with a solid Debian install.

I used the netinst CD for AMD64 (which is the debian way of saying x86_64) and installed the default kernel splitting the drive into inner and outer ring swap partitions (better seek times), a system partition and a massive /home partition. I've tried other schemes, but for a single user computer anything more than that is just unnecessarily complex.

The install took a little while, but most of the basics came up working. Nice screen. Hate touchpads. The wireless lan did NOT work, but a quick google turned up the package with the intel proprietary microcode to make it go. ACPI, which has typically been an issue on laptops (for me) worked out of the box.

Sound did not, though. I searched and found the "known issue" with almost all alsa versions prior to 1.0.15-3 but that upgrade alone did not fix it. I should clarify, "that update" involved effectively an entire system update, from the kernel up.

My mistake for installing the "stable" version on my laptop. For most user computers "unstable" is your best bet. "Stable" I generally use for servers. Oh well. Only took an extra HOUR.

Anyway, sound still didn't work. So I double checked everything and finally (using module-assistant, an A++ application in my book) got and compiled the actual alsa module. A quick reboot and sound now works.

I haven't tried the analog modem, and probably won't.

It's a Core 2 Duo on the centrino chipset, which should equate to good battery life, but I haven't tested that yet. This chipset while high speed in many respects is the source of the problems with both sound and wlan I ran into.

Speaking of which, my wlan device shows up as wlan0_rename for reasons unknown. Not a huge deal, but a little aggravating. I'll look into changing or aliasing it.

Overall I'm pretty happy with it!]]> General http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry071228-125058 The Jonas Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:50:58 GMT http://oldblog.thejonas.org/comments.php?y=07&m=12&entry=entry071228-125058 http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry071224-110649
The nuances of Harry's paternal relationship with Dumbledore are strikingly reminiscent of my own realizations. The final recognition of Dumbledore as a person, flawed, yet benevolent is a fitting close to the series.]]> General http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry071224-110649 The Jonas Mon, 24 Dec 2007 16:06:49 GMT http://oldblog.thejonas.org/comments.php?y=07&m=12&entry=entry071224-110649 http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry071210-230618
Its a good little phone, small enough to be phonelike but with plenty of features.

Still, not a good way to enter text in bulk!]]> http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry071210-230618 The Jonas Tue, 11 Dec 2007 04:06:18 GMT http://oldblog.thejonas.org/comments.php?y=07&m=12&entry=entry071210-230618 http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry071011-112712 facebook yesterday.

I had put this off due to my disgust with Myspace. I should have known better. Facebook is far more stable and usable than Myspace. Moreover, it has some security features that are well worth switching.


]]> General http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry071011-112712 The Jonas Thu, 11 Oct 2007 15:27:12 GMT http://oldblog.thejonas.org/comments.php?y=07&m=10&entry=entry071011-112712 http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry070919-100549

And others. Wonderful comments there too.

And an old friend (in the way a high school arch enemy becomes an old friend after not seeing him for 20+ years):



And of course the student arrest in FL that everyone is up in arms about. Like no one saw this coming.

The sad thing is, despite the later protests, no one tried to intervene on his behalf at the time at all.

Well, I have to count John Kerry's "No let me answer his question" statements as an attempt, and Kerry deserves a bit of grudging respect for that.]]> General http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry070919-100549 The Jonas Wed, 19 Sep 2007 14:05:49 GMT http://oldblog.thejonas.org/comments.php?y=07&m=09&entry=entry070919-100549 http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry070829-091149
The Mississippi coast is still gets a fraction of the coverage that New Orleans gets. In fact to hear it now you'd think NOLA took the brunt of the storm, and Mississippi just sort of got caught in the wash.

Well, that wasn't the case.

We got hit, and we got hit hard. There is a big difference though. In MS within a day or two we had figured out that waiting on the government to bail us out was foolish and futile. In fact the thought never crossed most people's minds.

In NOLA they are beginning to get the idea two years later.

You don't hear about the Mississippi coast because we didn't have bodies outside the Superdome (or inside for that matter). We didn't have hundreds, perhaps thousands of people trapped for days and days after the storm. We didn't have that kind of drama.

Here's why: In Mississippi we were out removing debris and clearing streets before the winds had completely died.

In Mississippi people got out and helped, themselves, their neighbors, and their communities.

In Mississippi we got back to work, and to school, and kept on cleaning up.

In Mississippi people are quietly planning and preparing for "the next time."

We have our share of problems and difficulties. There are complex and illogical local ordinances and procedures hampering recovery in some places. Some people won't be coming back; some we wish had stayed gone already are.

We still have problems with education and poverty, we still have corruption at the state and local government level that no one wants to talk about.

But Mississippi governor Haley Barbour recently spoke about the recovery efforts. In his speech, though written by a professional, and no doubt contrived, he still could not hide or fake a sense of pride and high expectations for the people of the state.

He's right, we have a lot to be proud of.]]> General http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry070829-091149 The Jonas Wed, 29 Aug 2007 13:11:49 GMT http://oldblog.thejonas.org/comments.php?y=07&m=08&entry=entry070829-091149 http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry070817-181407 Things go wrong

I cannot possibly say enough bad things about Cingular (the "new" AT&T). They gradually doubled my bill over the course of several months, and when they finally acknowledged part of the error, their "fix" was to increase the bill even more! Never mind the crappy service (well documented by others).

Then they had the gall to refuse to terminate the service without a huge back and forth discussion. During this "discussion" I was informed that since I was cancelling in the middle of a billing period I would be charged another month! Despite the fact that their website clearly indicated that today was the start of the billing period. Never mind that I'd never heard that before. Never mind that if I didn't catch their "magic" day the next time it rolled around (whenever that day was, no one ever was able to tell me when it had passed me by) I'd get tagged with ANOTHER month.

Upshot being that I'm on Sprint now. With a better plan and a lower rate. (For what it's worth I AM aware that canceled is misspelled above.)


Moreover, one of my wife's students was killed in a particularly violent manner last night. I didn't know him, but he was certainly well liked.

How I Lose Track of Time

I suppose I'm easily amused. Whatever the case, web-comics slay me. I stumble across them one way or another and BAM! I've wasted 6 hours reading them start to finish.

I have loved User Friendly, xkcd, 1/0, Red Meat , Sexy Losers (which is not URL'd as due to it's content is should not be viewed by anyone. Ever.), and so on.

The latest to grab my attention like a hungry elephant and hold it like El Chupa Cabre is Girly. Not for everyone, it does have a bit of graphic content and plenty of innuendo. However, on a deeper level, there's a poignancy under the surface that makes you dream of falling in love all over again... with whatever it is you would fall in love with.
]]> General http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry070817-181407 The Jonas Fri, 17 Aug 2007 22:14:07 GMT http://oldblog.thejonas.org/comments.php?y=07&m=08&entry=entry070817-181407 http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry070816-131623 had a conference in St. Louis, so Jack and I tagged along.

We had a really good time. There is a lot to see and do in St Louis.





We decided to take the scenic route back, and rely on my innate sense of direction to find our way. This worked pretty well, until we got to north Alabama. We got totally lost in some hitherto unknown county. My pride forces me to point out that it wasn't so much my sense of direction that failed... we knew WHERE we wanted to go. There was simply no WAY to get from where we actually were to where we wanted to be!

Obviously we eventually found our way back.]]> Vacations http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry070816-131623 The Jonas Thu, 16 Aug 2007 17:16:23 GMT http://oldblog.thejonas.org/comments.php?y=07&m=08&entry=entry070816-131623 http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry070715-090804 KI4YAR

Congratulations Devon, and hopefully we can get you on the air soon!!]]> Amateur_Radio http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry070715-090804 The Jonas Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:08:04 GMT http://oldblog.thejonas.org/comments.php?y=07&m=07&entry=entry070715-090804 http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry070714-130725














]]> Vacations, Kid_Pictures http://oldblog.thejonas.org/index.php?entry=entry070714-130725 The Jonas Sat, 14 Jul 2007 17:07:25 GMT http://oldblog.thejonas.org/comments.php?y=07&m=07&entry=entry070714-130725