Herro Flom Japan

OK, from the beginning. "Ubuntu" is a version of Linux that's very user-friendly. Why would you want to install Linux on your computer? Because real men, when we're not getting drunk, killing each other online or…well, you know what the other thing is…like to waste time f***ing around with useless stuff, that's why. Linux is an operating system, like Windows or MacOS, but everything in it is free, as in you don't have to pay for it. If you like installing new programs just for the heck of it and tempting fate by seeing just how far you can push your computer before you really screw things up, you'll like Ubuntu. On the other hand, if you're still using Internet Explorer and Outlook because you're too afraid to try anything new, you can stop reading now. (*cough* Dad *cough*)

Here are the steps to installing the brand-spankingly absolutely newest version of Ubuntu on your PC without any risk whatsoever of turning your desktop into a doorstop.

• Download Wubi and install it. It's brain-dead simple. Really. Just follow the directions. What's great about Wubi is that it makes a big file on your hard drive that pretends to be a new hard drive, then installs everything inside there. So, if you ever decide that Ubuntu isn't your thing, all you have to do is uninstall Wubi and your PC is back to normal. The alternative to using Wubi is…well, complicated. And potentially dangerous if you screw up. This step will take a few hours because it has to download a CD-ROM's worth of data.
• Once Wubi had downloaded the big honkin' file you need to install Ubuntu, restart your computer and you'll be given a choice to boot into either Windows or Ubuntu. Choose the latter and it'll automatically start installing your new operating system. Again, this will take a while, maybe half an hour or so. (Maybe it's just me, but I like to watch it install.)
• When it's done installing, restart, and again choose Ubuntu.
• Assuming that it was able to automatically configure networking, the first thing Ubuntu will do is tell you that there are some updates available. Isn't that nice? Install them and restart. Again, about half a hour right there.
• At this point, you've got a perfectly good version of Ubuntu running on your PC. Now it's time to grow a big, hairy pair of ubergeek balls and push Ubuntu to the limit!
• Restart your PC and boot into Windows. Backup your Wubi folder. (I'm assuming you have huge hard drive with lots of empty space left.) This will take about 15 min.
• Reboot into Ubuntu. Open a terminal window (Applications menu –> Accessories –> Terminal). Type this: sudo -i to log in as superuser (a.k.a. "root").
• Type this, the magic incantation: update-manager -d
• There will be a button to click to update to version 7.10, a.k.a. Gutsy Gibon. Blindly follow the instructions. It'll download the 1,400 files to begin the upgrade process.
• Once the files have been downloaded, Ubuntu will spend the next 2-3 hours installing them.
• Voila!
• If Gutsy Gibon works for you, you can delete that backup of the Wubi folder you made in Windows.

Bonus info: Ubuntu configures itself to fetch whatever files it needs from a server close to you. There are dozens of servers all over the world to choose from, some are fast and some are really, really goddamn slow. If you find that fetching the Gutsy Gibon files is taking forever, you can cancel the download process and try a different server. (System menu -> Administration -> Software Sources) Then, do the update-manager -d thing again and it'll pick up where it left off, only faster (hopefully). By switching severs, I was able to turn an estimated 5 hr. download into a 25 minute one.

I have to admit, whenever I write up a post like this one, I always wonder if anyone is going to find it useful, or most vistors just say to themselves, "Oh geez, there he goes again with his geek talk that has absolutely nothing to do with Japan."

Supposedly similar posts:

• Herro Flom Windows Live Writer
• Kanji Box

My boss wants me to set up a blog for him so he can talk about politics and business. But not just any old blog, no sir-ree, this guy is smart. If it won't make him money, he's not interested. No kidding aside, I wish I were more like him. And it has to brain-dead easy to post. Not that he's brain dead, but he doesn't have the same patience that I have when it comes to wrangling with technology.

First, the brain-dead easy part. Windows Live Writer. My God, this thing is excellent, and it's still only in beta. When you write a post, like I'm doing right now, it magically formats the edit window to the look and feel of your blog's template. Fonts, colors, CSS frills, background images, everything. And there are plugins available to add various functions, none of which float my boat, but they're there anyway.

My master will be very pleased.

There's only one caveat with WLW: the Bad Behavior anti-spam WordPress plugin blocks it. I found the fix in this post.

Next, the hard part. He wants the site to be bilingual, with a mobile version and a feature for paid subscriptions to daily moblile updates.

• WordPress is already internationalized, so we have that covered.
• The mobile version of the blog will be provided through the MobileEye+ plugin. I've been using it here and so far haven't had any problems.
• The daily mobile updates will be delivered via phplist.
• Subscriptions and memberships will be handled by aMember Pro, a $139 PHP script that can hook into WordPress and phplist and over 70 different payment systems. It does all the work, you just sit back and watch the money roll in.

This will be my first foray into full-blown ecommerce. It's hard to beleive I've been working on the Internet for this long and have yet to set up a site that's designed to take peoples' money.

Supposedly similar posts:

• Major geek fun: Playing with Ubuntu Gutsy Gibon, risk-free

Maybe there are better places to put your photos online, but Flickr has always worked for me so I've stuck with it.

Yahoo bought Flickr a year or two ago and has been weaving its tentacles through it ever since. A recently added feature is the ability to put your photos on a Yahoo Map, like this. Nearby photos taken by other users will also be displayed. If not, zoom out a bit.

The developers did the best with what they had to work with, but Yahoo's coverage of Japan pales in comparison to Google's. You can't zoom in far enough to place a photo exactly to the inch where it was taken, and well, in this day and age, that simply won't do.

1. Use Firefox.
2. Install Greasemonkey.
3. Restart
4. Install the Greasemonkey script "Google Maps in Flickr" (GMiF)
5. Marvel at the new link above a photo on its Flickr page that will open a Google map right then and there so you can geotag the photo the way God wants you to.

Supposedly similar posts:

• None Found

I've been slumming around on There.com lately. It's a 3D virtual world kind of thing.

I read BoingBoing.net every day, and one of the editors, Cory Doctorow, frequently mentions the comings and goings in the online 3D world Second Life. I bought a $10 membership to the place about a year ago but never used it. A few weeks ago, after having upgraded the guts of my PC, I decided to check it out. Maybe I had totally missed out on the reason for its appeal.

Well, I didn't. At least to me, the place just plain stinks. It's a virtual world that takes from the worst elements of the real world–sex, vanity, gambling, materialism and consumerism–and lets people go completely out of control with them. Practically every other user-created building in Second Life is a store selling slutty fashion for women. The irony of spending real money on more virtual property than anyone could ever need is completely lost on these people. And all the cybersex that goes on, along with the necessary equipment and scripts to support it, had me scratching my head and wondering, "What is WRONG with these people?" The worst part is the 3D physics and graphics were state-of-the-art about eight years ago.

So I decided to give There.com a try. Back in 2003, they blew through $30 million to develop their world and it shows. The landscape and professionally created structures are pure eye candy. The in-world vehicles are a blast to drive. It's more difficult for users to make money as developers, so for the most part only the most skilled people can make a living at it, so the landscape isn't so overrun with virtual crap.

What I like best about There.com is that it's rated PG-13. I can let my kids play in there–supervised, of course–and not worry about coming across a pair of bare naked avatars performing oral sex on each other. The three of us have spent the past two weekends barreling over the landscape in dune buggies and flying over it with a jet back strapped to our character's back. I met some people from South America and I've been able to use my Spanish (my second language) for the first time in ages. I'm trying to convince my sister in the US to sign on so that her two girls and my two boys can play together.

Yeah, so anyway, I'm sure we'll get bored with it eventually, but for now it's pretty fun. For about $4 in accessories, I even got my avatar to look like me, right down to my shoes:

Is that a hoot or what?

My username there is "Pavster," BTW.

Supposedly similar posts:

• None Found

A company has come out with a line of external batteries that will power your iPod and other portable devices for between 50 and 200 hours, depending on the model.

Supposedly similar posts:

• None Found