Gah, so much for regular updates! As always, life gets in the way of good intent and I’ve  not posted anything in a while. There’s still some traffic coming through, which I’m quite impressed with; especially considering the site only had a week to get going anyway and isn’t too interactive.
For those few of you who still take a peek, there’s plenty left in my mind to put into paper come the middle of june. First up: my new PC build and some playing with Linux, windows 7 and general hardware mayhem.

I’ve just been prodding around in the Ubuntu 9 (Jaunty Jackalope) information. Well, by prodding I mean “reading the main page about it” – but it’s fantastic to see that Ubuntu will finally be getting some proper multiple monitor support. None of this messing around with the command line, config files and different config files depending on whether your laptop has an external monitor or not.

Unfortunately the new development appears to be part of GNOME 2.26 and I can’t seem to find any suggestion of KDE or XFCE picking up on this anytime soon for Kubuntu or Xubuntu users. This seems a bit strange to me since Xubuntu particularly is used in various netbook distributions and seems to be the more popular option for laptop users – precisely the segment of the market where users will wish to add and remove monitors on the fly

It’s a step in the right direction, but this sort of improvement should be implemeted as high up the hierarchy as possible. It’s difficult enough to persuade users it’s a good idea to switch to liux. Harder still when they have to choose between distributions, even more so when there’s a variety of desktop environments on top of that.

And Linux users ridicule Microsoft for releasing 6 versions of windows 7.

Like every good geek I’ve dabbled with Linux a few times in the past. From a couple of attempts at getting Fedora going as a server on old hardware to the more recent Ubuntu assault on the desktop market. Unfortunately for my relationship with the ubiqtuous operating system, it’s never Just Worked^(tm).

The first problem I’ve always found is with the LiveCD. It’s a great idea, don’t get me wrong. I doubt a lot of home users would even consider just installing Linux if the option to try it out first wasn’t there but my word it’s slow. Why various distributions insist on using the heavyweight desktop environments is beyond me, because XFCE seems to do the job perfectly. Granted, some of the overhead is unavoidable – the CD drive is the inherent bottleneck, but some customisation to load more into memory would be nice.

The second problem, however, was always the killer for me. Wireless. Hours of messing around with drivers and software. The relatively recent network manager went a long way towards improving the connectivity, but that’s no use if the drivers aren’t there. Ndiswrapper would do the job, but it was just that extra bit of messing around that I didn’t need and that stopped linux being the real “install and go” operating system it needs to be.

Come last week and I decided to go back to an old laptop lying around the house, the subject of the most recent foray into the world of Ubuntu (Dapper Drake, in case you’re curious) with it’s slightly ancient Belkin adapter. It’s very basic hardware; a 1.4gHz celeron; 256mb RAM, 40GB hdd. This machine struggled with Windows XP in its day and Ubuntu was a little too much for it to be comfortable with. Startup times were slow and it always felt a little sluggish. The big issue, however, was always that wireless.

Zip forward to April 2009 and I decide on Xubuntu for the latest expedition. The basic theory behind it being that the XFCE desktop environment is smaller and faster than either Gnome (ubuntu’s default) or KDE. I don’t care all that much about the fancy effects, so that’s a non-issue.

The moment the LiveCD hit the desktop I noticed the difference. The LiveCD version of Xubuntu is faster than the installed Ubuntu with it’s default GNOME. In fact, it almost matches my 2gHz//2GB core 2 duo laptop running vista, and runs my Eee 901 into the ground. Mucho impressed-o. The 256mb of ram still gives it a bit of trouble unless I’m on the ball with keeping the number of applications down, but as a basic internet machine with a bigger screen than a netbook it isn’t holding up too badly. Especially considering that all it cost me was 600mb of bandwidth.

I was far  more pleased to note, however, that it recognised the wireless dongle as soon as it was plugged in. Getting online was no more painful than clicking the network and entering the key, although the new passphrase stumped me for a minute. For the first time ever I now have a linux installation that won’t just be put up on a shelf waiting for the next time I get the urge to tinker.

Now all it needs is for someone to make a proper OneNote-compatable note-taking program and Linux might even find it’s way onto my netbook and laptop-proper.

Edit: How strange that I should post this, then almost straight away stumble onto  someone who’s just had the exact opposite experience, the ndiswrapper and terminal tomfoolery I was so glad Ubuntu seemed to have gotten away from. Here’s the article over at PiloSEO, for anyone interested.

Whether it’s to do with the specific wireless adapter, using Xubuntu (XFCE) instead of Ubuntu (Gnome) or something else I’m not sure: maybe I did just get lucky.

Why is it that one user can tag an article with the word “pornography” even though it has clearly been marked as “not adult” by the original discoverer, thus causing referrals to practically dissapear.

This is something I’d never experienced before with StumbleUpon, but it’s quite striking how much of a difference it makes to referrals.

Normally when one of my articles gets added to Stumble, the ratings shoot up for 24-48 hours, then tail off with just the odd extra stumble through later on. That’s how I noticed this occasion, I’d looked at the stats earlier and the predictable spike had begun when some kindly soul stumbled me; but suddenly had stopped almost completely in the hour before I checked.

At first I was stumped – I knew my site wasn’t down because I was drafting an article; and stumbleupon wasn’t down – I was using it at the time. I went and checked the article specifically, no problems there. Then I hovered over the tags… “pornography”. Apparently one random user decided to tag the site with that reference and suddenly my article is tainted; now, if this person simply gets very overexcited about Java I might let them off; but the article in question was about Swing – hardly the most exciting topic.

I couldn’t see why it would be malicious, the site the article was on is technical – there’s very little opinion and just about no criticism. In short, nothing to annoy anyone. Naturally I tried to report the problem when I noticed it, but it’s still there nearly 48 hours later, and the traffic to that article has all but dissapeared. So why, dear Stumble Upon, do you insist on taking the word of one user? Surely it wouldn’t be too much work to prompt a second user to confirm/refute the tag; or maybe just rely on the standard ability to report the site as adult in the original discovery or under the tools->report this stumble as… section.

Come on Stumble, give us some fairer quality control.

At first it sounds a bit stupid: of course you would have noticed… it’s a recession. Less money, high prices, bankers not welcome at dinner parties, easy.

But really, how would anyone actually tell? Prices fluctuate all the time but the trend is usually upwards. Besides which prices haven’t really shot up all that much. In my opinion, it’s actually the fact that we were told that there is a credit cruch, recession and so on that sales have slumped.

Any individual person is probably out of pocket by a few Dollars, Pounds. Probably less than would be noticed in the weekly shop. Why then, is nobody spending? We all have the money, there’s no lack of new products at reasonable prices and the number of people being laid off isn’t particularly high.

Which brings me back to the title. Is it because we feel we shouldn’t be spending? The word recession brings up images of job loss and an inability to feed ourselves, the constant media attention on the “credit crunch” makes everyone much more conscious of their savings and debt, thereby less likely to want to spend any of their money; even if they can afford it. So, what would be happening now if the media had made a conscious effort not to make such a fuss over it. Would we still be in this situation of stagnation, nobody willing to borrow money or let it go; a fear of money moving no matter what we get in return? Or would it have passed us by, the banks had a few shaky months and a loan from the government and everyone get on with their lives.

Perhaps with a new Honda and a trip to Hawaii.

Here I am, writing the obligatory introductory post for my new blog; on my nice shiny new domain with my new hosting; you get the picture.

Up to now I’ve gotten hold of two domains for myself, but I’d really like at least one more. The one the blog currently resides on is quite standard but has the professionalism I want to have.  jonathanstory.com, it gets the job done ™ without too much faff, but without the memorable element I’d quite like. The plan is to use this as a portfolio and place to host the myriad of projects I start or get involved with. Generally I think it will be followed as a link or just typed straight off a document, CV or (I hope) business card.

TminusTen.com is the second domain, planned at the moment as being the lighter side of my life. Facebook gets the quick updates on what I’m doing when I feel the need to announce things about myself to the world; this should hopefully be a place for me to rant, rave, discuss and generally have my say. Along with all the brain-splosion I’ll probably upload a few videos and photos and get a bit of a gallery going, and use it for any lighter projects or things I don’t want to be part of the professional side.

In terms of the name I like TminusTen a lot more as a domain. It’s a bit nerdy, but most people know the phrase making it, hopefully, short and memorable. I’m still looking for a better name for my personal site; something a bit more about me, at which point this may become either the blog or perhaps something for OpenTTD or Continuum creations. Something of that ilk anyway.

Enough about domains, hopefully I’ve developed my organisational skills far enough to make something more of this site than the “I’m 14 and have nothing much to write about” stage. More to come