Category: Life in General

This, the next exciting story in my Adventures With the Thinkpad T61 At Work (TM)  =;)…. So I got a really sweet-looking IOGEAR 4-port USB KVM Switch at work. But when I plugged it into the T61, although the nVidia driver was able to find the external display (auto-detect button thingey), it only gave me 2 options for resolution, the larger of which was 640×480, which obviously is rubbish. So I stumbled across this helpful ubuntu page which gave me the clue I needed: It would seem that xorg cannot detect the possible resolutions when using the “nvidia” driver. For me, the only resolution I could use was my LCD’s native resolution (1680×1050). Here’s how you fix this: 1) Make Read more…

This is pretty darned cool. I bought a $300 desktop from Walmart a few years ago and it’s still running OpenSUSE and serving as a pretty capable desktop machine for the family. Definitely worthwhile to put our FOSS dollars where our mouths are too, imho. Let’s support the companies who are actively putting the software that we think is best out there! =:) $200 Ubuntu Linux PC Now Available at Wal-Mart | Gadget Lab from Wired.com $200 Ubuntu Linux PC Now Available at Wal-Mart

Thought this was pretty humorous. Went looking for unread KDE mail today and found these 2 e-mails back to back. Does it stink? Is it great? I’m going with the “is great” e-mail, personally… =;)

So, along with my glowing accolades of a few days ago, I’ll offer a little painful reality. The T61, as I said, is a heck of a nice little machine. Fast, smooth, quiet, and the works. However, there are a few things that have proven to be not so nice: most notably that which is absolutely necessary in a laptop: suspend and resume. I’ve spent far more time than I’d like searching the ‘net for hints/suggestions/hints/etc., but I’ve not quite found any full, working solutions. It would seem that the problem stems from the fact that I’m using nvidia’s binary driver (100.14.23)… or at least that’s not helping. Also, it would appear that OpenSUSE 10.3, which I’m running on the Read more…

My darling daughter was quick to fill me in on a bit of news garnered by some educational television programming the other day: I’m apparently relocating my little brood to The Red Triangle.  Oh good.  And here I was, just saying to myself: “Boy, Self, this is REALLY cool!  You finally get a chance to move back to California beaches again and can enjoy some good surf!”  Hm.  It’s always nice to find out you’re moving to a triangle of death. I had no idea that there was such a thing as the Red Triangle, but apparently it’s named that because it’s the highest concentration of Great White shark attacks in the world.  Oh good. This tidbit of news prompted Read more…

So, here I sit in SFO, fighting the urge to pay $6 for an hour of WIFI. Note to self: figure out how to use Treo 650 in Linux with Sprint as a PPP connection! Oh yeah, also buy a bluetooth usb dongle like Seb’s. I had an absolutely amazing last couple of days, despite having the most obnoxious sinus/head cold evar. I cannot tell you how totally cool both Seb and Thiago are. I wish I had a few more days to spend with them, as well as all the rest of my fellow FOSS geek brethren. The Google summer of code mentor’s summit was just plain awesome (thanks Chris, Leslie, and all the other Googlers who made this Read more…

KDE Computer Case Badges Originally uploaded by vanRijn Ordered some awesome computer case badges from an overseas .nl guy and just got them in the mail yesterday. I must say, I’m very impressed–with the quality of the product, the price, the shipping cost, and the shipping time. I highly recommend him, even though I can’t understand the majority of his site and e-mails…. =:D