Buh-Bye 2011

2011, Buh-Bye by JibJab.

Happy New Year – 2012

This last year was pretty good for us.  We figured out why my son was having a hard time reading, catching and other thing.  He had week eye muscles.  It took a specialist and about two hours to figure it out.  We saw a hugh improvement with his sight in only a few months.  He is enjoying Cub Scouts, and impressed me with building a bird house after showing him how to safely work a jigsaw.

Our daughter continues to impress us and her teachers at school.  She finds kindergarten work to be boring and wants to move to first grade.  We had to explain to her she needs to complete kindergarten then she can start first grade work.  I think next year she will be ready to ride her bicycle without training wheels.  I am looking forward to taking them to a park to ride and have a picnic.

My wife and I are enjoying our jobs.  I love working on computers and helping customers resolve the IT problems.  It is also nice to be working across the street from my wife.  Meeting up for lunch is easier now.  My home office is built and looks fantastic.  I need to finish painting the trim and install a few shelfs.  I like the blue-grey color with wood floors.  It feels nice and clean.  Plus no rugs which helps with my allergies.

Here’s to wishing you a Happy New Year!  I hope 2012 is good to you.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 14,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Getting an iMac

Image via CrunchBase

Over the past year I’ve been thinking about getting a new PC for the family.  The current Dell Dimension 8200 (almost 10 years old) was having a hard time running Windows XP and all the patches and security to keep it mostly virus and malware free.  I installed Ubuntu 11.10 server on that Dell PC and turned it into a media server and backup storage device.

So what to get for the family?  I could go with another Windows 7 PC and have the option to have more virus and malware installed every time the kids go to one of their kid friendly sites.  My wife might need Windows 7 for remote access to work, plus it’s a familiar interface for everyone.

I could go with Linux OS such as Ubuntu 11.10, Linux Mint 12 (when it is available), or some other disto.  But the problem with Linux for the family, a whole bunch of kid websites just don’t work with Linux.  For example, Cartoon Network has some pretty cool games, but most of the games will not work in Linux.  Those games require different engines such as Unity (not to be confused with Unity for Ubuntu).  Also, many games that I like to play are not available in a Linux environment.  I tried running Windows XP in a VM, but the performance is terrible and the games require high-end video cards which you never see in a VM.

My buddy at work suggested getting an iMac.  The first thing that went in my mind, “How am I going to afford that?”  Turns out the entry level iMac is within my budget.  So I stopped at the local Apple Store and took a look.  Usually I’m in there for a few minutes with the kids to kill time while my wife is shopping.  Now I had time to shop.  As usual I was assaulted but several employees right away.  But I needed time to look over what they had and get some ideas before I would talk with someone.

Steve, the sales person, saw I was ready to have my questions answered.  After a few minutes of talking about my concerns and what I wanted to accomplish, Steve unlocked the iMac and let me install some of the games from Cartoon Network.  Out of all my years in IT, from selling to support, I’ve never heard someone say let’s unlock the computer and install the web apps you mentioned.  So I played some of the Cartoon Network games. I was hooked.  Just need to upgrade the memory from 4GB to 8GB.  The Apple memory is expensive.  Looks like I’ll be checking on-line for a better price.

Now, what am I going to do about some of the Windows only applications I need?  I will keep my notebook PC as a dual boot between Windows 7 and Linux (not sure about keeping Ubuntu).  Maybe I’ll install VMWare Fusion, VirtualBox, Parallels or Bootcamp for my Windows needs.  I doubt I’ll ever break away completely from Windows.  Too many applications I need for Windows for my job.

So this Christmas Santa will deliver a new computer for the family.  It will meet the needs of my family, address my concerns, and also give me a little education in the Mac world.

Now, what book should I get…

Palindrome Day

Today at 11:11 and 11 seconds, the date and time will be a perfect same-number palindrome.  What is a palindrome?

- A word, phrase, or sequence that reads the same backward as forward.

So at 11:11:11 on 11/11/11 (short date) it will be Palindrome Day!

Happy Veterans Day – 2011

Happy Veterans Day. Thank you to all that have served.

Harrison Ford Settles a Feud

Found this video posted on Youtube today.

From Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Happy Fourth of July – 2011

Image via Wikipedia

Happy Fourth of July!!

The Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays.  Some of my favorite things include fireworks, picnics, hangout with family and friends, and enjoying being outside playing games, riding my bike, or reading a book.  This year I took the family to Dutch Wonderland in Lancaster, Pennsylvania a few days ago.  We had a great time with all the rides, shows, and water park.  We left the park to have a picnic lunch before returning to enjoy the park some more.

I am planning on grilling ribs, hotdogs and corn on the cob for dinner.  Tonight I will line the sidewalk with sparklers to have a little fun for the kids.  I’m sure the kids will have have fun writing thing in the air with sparklers too.  We will watch the fireworks from the front yard since there is a park near by, and maybe have some of the fudge we picked up a Dutch Wonderland with iced tea or lemonade.

Moving On to a New Job

Today is my last day with my current employer and working for a fantastic client here in Delaware.  I made a lot of new friends in IT and on the production floor.  Some of them I will stay in contact with on Facebook or Google Chat, others I will see in the area.  But now it’s time for me to move on, to take care of my family’s needs.  Sadly the new job will not include Linux work, but there are high profile projects which are scheduled to begin shortly after my start date.

My notebook running Linux Mint 11 and my fart bank

During my two year stay, I really appreciate the client giving me a wide latitude to develop my Linux skills.  When I first arrived in 2009, my cube was filled with twelve PCs all running Windows XP or Vista.  Shortly afterwards I installed Ubuntu 9.04 to learn how to use Linux in a production environment.  Soon, I was running two Linux boxes; one as a personal file server with Samba and NFS, the other as a VM host for multiple Windows XP machines in multiple non-trusting domains.

By the time I left, I had four Linux PCs (one as a Linux Mint 11 notebook with a Windows 7 x64 VM, my original Ubuntu file server, a new Ubuntu 11.04 x64 file server with an external RAID 5 1.3TB disk box running Samba and NFS, plus a Linux Mint 11 PC running a Windows XP VM in the other domain for Active Directory support).  I’ve also deployed Ubuntu 11.04 to my manager’s Dell M4500 notebook, Linux Mint 11 to a colleagues’ notebook, and started training another colleague, on using Ubuntu 11.04 with NFS and Samba.

I also had the chance to deploy RHEL 6 workstation as a host with a disk box for off-site archive, and a introduction to ESX for creating new Windows Server VMs.

I wish all the best to previous employer, my manager, my colleagues (local and other sites through out  the U.S.), and to all the people I supported at the Delaware locations.  I will miss working with you, and hope to see you soon!

Firefox 5 Available for Ubuntu

Image via Wikipedia

Today I ran Update Manager on my Ubuntu 11.04 notebook and saw Firefox 5.  No PPas to install, just an easy upgrade.

• From the Keyboard, press Super+a (Windows key and the letter a)
• Type in update manager in the search field and click on the icon
• You should see something about Firefox 5 with any other updates
• Install the updates and wait

With my other updates tonight, I waited about 2 minutes before I can run Firefox 5.  I can only hope the Thunderbird upgrade will be as easy.