Regular readers know I don’t have much use for Microsoft. They dominate the desktop through marketing and inertia, not technical merit. But I’ve been thinking about the relative positions of Internet Explorer and its competitors, and I think we should be glad it’s out there. Internet Explorer is a classic case of how Microsoft behaves [...]
Archive of posts filed under the Linux category.
Wireless router, part II
Well, the D-Link wireless router didn’t last long. After about two days it suddenly started losing its ability to control the DSL modem, and internet connectivity was dropping out for two and three minutes at a time. Back to the store it went, and I got a Netgear WNDR3700. The Netgear has been in use [...]
Have a Mint
Regular readers of my techie posts will recall I had trouble with upgrading to Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) on my primary desktop. Two clean installs failed to work right and I was forced to fall back on upgrading a 9.10 installation in place. This has been bothering me since it happened, and last week I [...]
Wireless router tech support – Linksys vs. D-Link
Recently my Linksys wireless-N router became flaky. It would forget it was a wireless device and stop accepting wireless connections. Sometimes this would solve itself after a while, other times it required a reboot. As a stopgap measure I hooked up a second cheap-ass wireless-G router I had on hand and configured it as an [...]
Google Encrypted Search plugin for Firefox
Google has just made encrypted search available. Basically it’s just like the regular Google search but over a secure https connection so that no one can spy on your searching (in theory, anyway). Here’s a Google encrypted search plugin for Firefox: http://www.dwasifar.com/google-encrypted.zip This plugin puts Google Encrypted search in the drop-down list of quick search [...]
Ubuntu: Migrating from Grip to Audex
Yesterday I wrote about the odd difficulties I had in moving my main desktop computer from Ubuntu 9.10 to 10.04. Everything seems to work fine now, except one thing: Grip, for ripping CDs. Regular readers may remember I posted a guide for migrating from Grip to RipperX. I used RipperX for a while, until someone [...]
Ubuntu: Unexpected upgrade difficulties
I had no trouble installing and using Ubuntu 10.04 on my secondary desktop, starting from beta 2. After the production release I installed it on two notebooks, and it went fine; no problems at all. So it was kind of a nasty surprise to run into trouble installing it on my primary desktop. I wanted [...]
Ubuntu: Install Amarok 1.4 in 10.04 (Lucid Lynx)
Many people still like Amarok 1.4, in spite of the improvements in Amarok since 2.0 was released. Lucid has Amarok 2.3 in the repos, and it’s really nice, but there are still fans of Amarok 1.4 who may want to run that in Lucid. We’ll be using Bogdan Butnaru‘s Jaunty PPA. (Thanks, Bogdan!) Yes, I [...]
Ubuntu: Install Amarok 1.4 in 10.04 beta 2 (Lucid Lynx)
These instructions have been superseded by a revised guide for the official release: Install Amarok 1.4 in 10.04 (Lucid Lynx). Please use that instead. Thanks. These instructions are pretty much the same as my previous how-to guide for installing Amarok 1.4 in Karmic; there are a couple minor changes though, so I’m giving it its [...]
Initial impressions of Ubuntu 10.04 beta 2
Canonical is on track to release the next version of Ubuntu, 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) in two weeks. This will be a Long Term Support release, so one would expect an emphasis on stability. I tested the first beta back in March and it was a little too rough to be useful. Beta 2 was released [...]
