OMG, MASSIVE COMPUTER NERDINESS AHEAD. YOU ARE WARNED.

I did get a new computer. Basic specs:

* AMD Phenom II X2 545  3.0GHz (Dual Core) 45nm, AM3 6MB Cache

* MSI 760GM-E51, AMD 760G, Onboard Video, HDMI, GB LAN

* 8GB (4x2GB) PC8500 DDR3 1066 Dual Channel

* 500.0GB Hitachi 7200RPM SATA2, UDMA 300 8m cache

* LG 22x DVD Recorder Dual Layer +R/RW -R/RW

* A copy of Windows 7 Pro

I also bought a hard drive “toaster” for easy access to stuff on my old drives.

I installed Kubuntu 10 on the new box, and Virtualbox so I can haz mah Windoze. But, I goofed and installed the “Open Source Edition” of Virtualbox, so, heh, I can’t connect any USB drives/devices and have Windows be able to access them. What I really need Windows for in the first place, is to connect my Yaesu VX-7R radio so stored frequencies can be easily programmed. If anyone knows of any (OMG, FREE?) software for Linux that works the same as the ADMS-1G software, please give me a shout on teh twitters or via email. I did also try to use Wine to install the ADMS-1G software in Linux, but it won’t recognize that I AM installing it from the original source CD and thus bails out of the install process.

I haven’t exhausted all avenues with Virtualbox yet though, I haven’t tried the closed-source version, which I’m thinking would require I reinstall Windows which I really don’t want to do but I will if its the only option.

I came home yesterday after lunch and the computer was powered off, with that awesome tell-tale “burnt electronics” smell emanating from its general area.

I can order a new one for about the same price (heh, including Windows 7) as it would cost me to replace the borken parts of the current one. The choice seems fairly obvious.

This will also give me a chance to do that long-delayed update from Kubuntu 8 to Kubuntu 10. And give me an excuse to buy a new monitor. And an external HD dock. And install VirtualBox so I can have Windows as a guest OS instead of rebooting every time we need Windows for something.

• Despite setting the option to save new photos to the media card, the camera still saves them to “Device Memory”
• If a picture fails to upload (no matter the application) I cannot get it to upload using any other application, even after rebooting (forcing me to download the picture via the USB connection if I want to post it somewhere)
• Can’t find any decent (and free) personal time management apps
• Can’t find any decent (and free) budgeting apps
• I get shit for cell phone signal at my apartment, which drains the battery abnormally fast, not to mention I can’t even make phone calls, and 3G? HA! forget it
• I pay $100/month just for my phone. Which I can’t use half the time (see above)
• WordPress app is now apparently only available via “Blackberry App World” so I just had to download and install a completely new app to update one I already had

When my contract is up, I think I’m just going to go back to a basic, non-smart, cheap-as-I-can-get phone.

Already found at least 1 problem, not all of my ‘Pages’ show up in the page list. Seems like it picked 5 random ones out of the 16 I have (total, I have 6 published, 6 drafts, and 4 private).

A couple days ago, I was taking a nap and Bart was up working at his desk, and my remote started going off, like someone was trying to break into the car. He rushed out, but didn’t find anything suspicious at the time. We figured someone just lifted one of the door handles to see if it was locked, and ran away when the alarm went off.

Tonight when I got home, I got out of my car, locked it, and went inside. By the time I kicked my shoes off at the front door, my remote started beeping, and the shock sensor icon was on. I put my shoes back on and went back out. The alarm didn’t seem to be going off, but as I was standing there, the shock sensor gave warning chirps like someone bumped the car. Nothing was touching it. It wasn’t windy, and there were no trucks rumbling by.

I’m starting to grow very suspect of this alarm unit. My remote has also randomly rebooted itself on several occasions, despite the battery icon showing ‘full’.

I decided to update from Kubuntu 7.04 (Feisty) to 7.10 (Gutsy) and guess what? It installed a different driver for my wireless card and broke my internet again. GRRRRRRRRRRRR.

I spent the last 3 hours trying to fix it, with no luck. Why does every fscking thing in Linux have to be so damn difficult?

This morning, I stepped into my office at home to grab something, and my computer was sitting at the login prompt for Kubuntu instead of my Windows desktop (meaning, Windows updated itself and rebooted the pc). I decided on a whim to give trying to set up the wireless one more shot.

I didn’t have the network info handy, but looking in /etc/network, I found a backup copy of the interfaces file from when I had messed with it previously, and copied it into place. Restarting networking produced a slew of errors, most of which were from the wired interfaces not being plugged in. Seeing this, I commented those interfaces out of the file, and then I noticed that one line was missing from the wireless interface section that was in all the others, so I added it. I saved the file and restarted networking again, and POOF. Network connectivity! Unpossible!

Sadly though, I did not have much time today to play with my newly-connected desktop as we were busy getting ready to drive over to GR for our mini-vacation, and to see the Jeff Dunham show on Sunday night at the DeVos performance hall.