So today she took the iPhone back, headed over to Costco, and got hooked up with a free Droid and a complete accessory pack. Her total was $15 which was just the taxes on the value of the phone. She now has a way bigger screen, 2 cores of 1.2GHz of love, twice the storage of the 16GB iPhone, and more apps at her fingers than she knows what to do with. One thing I noticed when she had the iPhone, is that she wasn’t intrigued, or really interested in messing with it. With the new Droid, she hasn’t put it down. The only thing she is missing is some silly graphical waste of phone case now. One mistake I made though, is I didn’t transfer her contacts or pictures off of the iPhone before she returned it. Luckily we have her old phone she upgraded to the iPhone from. It is as dead as one could get, but luckily I was able to snag her contacts off of the SD card and import them in her new GMail account in seconds. She hadn’t realized I did that until I heard her say, “Oh, there are my contacts, hrmm!” She thought they just magically appeared The photos are a loss unfortunately, or fortunately for many. You see, mom was damn near on her death-bed this summer, and while on it, she received really nasty bruises from all the needles injected. Well, she thought it was a good idea to take pictures of them to show to people. Now people will not have to hold back throwing up all over the place, so I guess I kind of won there

Also on the Android front, I got a Kindle Fire free in December. A stock Fire sucks the big one. Luckily a few hackers are creating an ICS ROM for it over at XDA Developer Forums. I put it on the other day and finally the Kindle is worth the $199. There are still a few minor bugs, but I can use it and be happy I am not looking at the garbage that Amazon created. If I were Google, I would make Amazon stop telling people it is Android.

Mom Finally Using Linux is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

At first, I wasn’t sure if I was even going to like the JamBox. I really only listen to tunes on the train or walking around during a commute. I figured I would check it out, and if I didn’t like it, Craigslist/Amazon/Ebay it. After a little research I found out you are really restricted to the OS’ you can use to configure and get it setup initially. Windows XP (32-bit only), Vista, or 7 and Mac OS X are the only ones supported. I have that crap developer preview of Windows 8 on a machine, so I tried it. Hell no that didn’t work. Windows 8 couldn’t figure out what to do with it. Googling for help on that didn’t even result in a single thing. So, after borrowing a computer with Windows, I got it setup.

It has some pretty cool features. You can go with a wired connection with it or bluetooth. With the Kindle Fire I had to go the wired route, because Amazon has that thing locked down like Blagojevich will be soon. The sound out of it was impressive. Next I paired it via bluetooth to my phone and once again it was impressive. Speakerphone on it rocks, and just by pushing a button it will make the call, hold, mute, you name it. Next I wondered if it would work with Kubuntu.

So I enabled bluetooth on my laptop, set the JamBox to pairing mode, had Kubuntu search for it, and boom, it connected. Kubuntu even knew to add it as an audio device. To test it, I fired up Google Music and started playing. Hrmm, no sound out of it, just my laptop speakers. After playing around with System Settings and telling Kubuntu to prefer the JamBox, all worked, and worked well. The laptop speakers mute when using the JamBox, and when I shut off the JamBox the speakers on the laptop go back to playing the sound, and vice versa. I started walking around with it while LMFAO Party Rock was going and doing the dance around the house. I kept walking, and before you knew it, I was outside with it making my neighbors laugh. I then realized, damn, bluetooth has a range further than I ever thought. I was probably close to 50 feet away from my laptop, which was upstairs in the office, while I was outside.

The sound from the JamBox blows the laptop speakers out of the water. The ability to switch on different sound boosters is nice as well. The bass is good, the sound is crisp, and it is loud. As I write this, Google Music is shuffling between Gojira, Lamb of God, and more. I think I will keep this bad boy, as it is useful. Oh, and I have my phone and laptop paired with it now. So if I get a phone call, I can answer it through the JamBox and talk away. Rock on!

Kubuntu 11.10 and My JamBox is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

I like the looks of one of the ARM boards as they are small enough to stick just about anywhere and not make any noise. Is there a configuration that would suit my needs and not break the bank? I like the small machines from both System76 and ZaReason, but they are to rich for my blood at this time. Of course it has to run Linux and only Linux. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

UPDATE: Thanks to Laura Czajkowski for reminding me that I have a Dell Mini 9 that I can use for this. It has a dead LCD, but I can use an external display to install and setup as it will be headless when up and running. I just need to find the power cord for it now.

Looking For Small Inexpensive Linux Server is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Before you start going bat shit insane on me, let me first state that I love Linux, and use Linux 99.9% of the time in my daily life. That other .1% of the time that I have to use something like Windows is only to sync up a Garmin device I use on my bicycle, and even then it is a bad excuse to use Windows (I know I can’t sync but I can manually upload my .FIT files via Linux). As a developer of sorts, I prefer to use Linux and its amazing tools to get my job done and to keep my life going. Sure, it started out as a hobby for me back in the early 90′s, but has since turned into a way of life for me.

I have done development on a Windows machine, and 75% of the time I complained about the workflow and how the tools available for Windows did nothing more than get in the way. The other 25% of the time I went out to dinner while something was compiling or I was updating the machine. Sure, that last part had a bit of sarcasm, but damn it is fairly dead on. I am one of those who prefer to use Vim (back in the day it was Emacs) to do most of my development work. Sure, I could use those in Windows, but they aren’t great at doing Windows development. My workflow with Linux is so much simpler than it is in Windows, and especially Windows 8.

Why doesn’t it pose a threat you ask? Simple, Windows already has billions of people using it and Linux only has millions. There is no threat to Linux, I repeat, there is no threat to Linux. Have you used Windows 8? If so, you know there is probably no threat to Windows XP. Sure, it is cool on the surface, and it is only a developer’s preview, but still, there is enough going on that you can figure out the direction. I installed Windows 8 on my desktop to play around with it. Note the phrase, “play around with it“, as it is nothing more than a toy at this moment. My dad, a devout christian Windows user, even a power user I guess you would say, played around with Windows 8 as well. His verdict was that there was no way in hell he would use it. Sure there is a lot of buzz out there about Windows 8, but my guess it is from people who haven’t used a Wii, saw a Windows Phone, played with Google TV, or used anything like Unity, Gnome Shell, or the KDE Plasma Netbook.

The one thing Windows 8 does brilliantly that has actually posed, not a threat, but more of a challenge to Linux, is the amount of time it takes to start. I put it on an older machine (3+ years old), and in 10 seconds it was up and running. Haven’t seen Linux do that yet. I know Canonical has been busy working on boot speed with Ubuntu, but it can’t even compare with Windows 8 at this time. Even if I put my Linux machine to sleep or hibernate, it can’t even boot up as fast as Windows 8.

So, not threat for Linux, and I doubt at threat for Windows XP, Windows 7, or Mac OS X users. One thing people need to remember is that Mac OS X users and Linux users are proud people, and use either of those for a reason, and a majority of that time the reason is because Windows sucks. OK, sucks is a harsh word, but you chose to use Linux or Mac OS X for some reason.

I am interested in hearing if you think it poses a threat to Linux, so go ahead, leave a comment below.

Windows 8 Does Not Pose A Threat To Linux is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.

Fonts
By default the fonts are awful looking. I am not well versed in all of the fontness, however I can say the fonts are blurry as hell after an install. First thing I did here was Enable Use anti-aliasing in System Settings, and then set the Hinting style to Full. After a quick restart the fonts are now nice and crisp looking.

Network Mangler
Jeesh, for 2 years now I have had to manually enter the MAC address of my wireless router because I utilize a hidden SSID. Looks like I will be spending another 2 years adding that address to ~/.kde/share/apps/networkmanagement/connections/{35570ccd-a656-491e-97d0-622d29ba020b} for seenbssids=. I will make sure I tag this post KDE so the Network Manager folks can yell at me and show me I am doing something wrong.

I seriously think those are my only 2 gripes, and both gripes are easily fixed in less than a minute each. There are a couple of new things too that finally work.

Printing
YAY! Huge hugs to the person who implemented the network printing stuff, or at least fixed it so now I don’t have to install the GNOME printer applet or whatever it is called just to install a shared network printer. Kudos to you my friend or friends, job well done!

Bluetooth
I can connect to my phone, I can send it a file! Haven’t been able to do this before. To be honest, I never used it, and after using it today it made me realize one thing. Bluetooth sucks, except for those little ear pieces we see all the wanna-be business people wearing. You know, the things where people look like they are talking to themselves but really aren’t, or they could the new school posers acting like they are important. I am choosing the latter there.

Like I said, overall I am really impressed with what I am seeing here. As some of you know, I have been a bit bummed over the past year with Kubuntu and Ubuntu and annoyed by so much. Seeing this release makes me cheer up a bit and realize just what I am missing by not sitting in IRC for 24 hours a day running pbuilder constantly. Damn, now that I put it that way, I don’t know if I was missing that

Kudos Ubuntu and Kubuntu hackers on a job well done!

My Kubuntu Natty Opinions is a post from Richard A. Johnson's blog.