Ubuntu 9.10 – ok but some bad packages spoil it

Koala (9.10) i have to revise my opinion on the updates, what used to work i find does not work after updates to some core components on a ubuntu box – namely open office 3.1 and the spreadsheet app.

The botched build of oo in repo finally pushed me back to Debian Lenny, i dont have sound, but its faster and all my spreadsheets (as .ods files) load and can also be saved.  The machine also makes an ok x hoster something that ubuntu isnt interested in.

Whatever the failure of the oo build in the repo is probably due to some strange ubuntu community update nit picking for the latest build – it was the issue that decided i was to change distros.

When i have to use a server running debian to edit a small spreadsheet  that i could open and save on 9.10 pre update then all is not well in ubuntu land.  The base might be stable, the oo app implemented in 9.10 sucks.

Amusing for halloween

Dollhouse – finally gets interesting.

be carefull what you wish for

Dollhouse is something that i tolerate and is on television.  It has had an iffy start, subject to vagueness of people who would not know how to put a tv show together when the people making it are not up to the job in some strange world called tv executive land (search this blog for further musings).

Getting a second season was even touch and go but my intolerance to tv executives who think they can make tv has resulted in some nice episodes by the people who really make it.

These are very much in the minority, but it appears theres life to be found here after all.

Charlie Brookers Gameswipe

Was on bbc four and took a large dump on the mainstream media’s reporting of computer games.

I like Mr Brookers acerbic wit and i can be found to be recommending his bbc shows in this blog

5/5 bananas

bluetooth sucks.

802.15 should be a joy, not just for windows users, or mac users but all users after all its a standard like ethernet, alas this standard has been gang raped by Microsoft.

Bluetooth for cavedwellers makes short range radio communication between say a phone and a headset/computer and mouse etc. Easy ! no wires in theory

Alas some fuck head at bluetooth.org decided that linux compatibly and bluetooth was bad, no doubt theres some pressure from the microsoft to do this so i am very late to this.

It took me about two days of googling for something that might work with linux in the form of a usb adaptor. Thats encouraging isnt it?  Lets face it they don’t want people like me using it.

Lets face facts, LInux supports bluetooth, but the people who certify it, dont like to advertise that it does work with Linux.

Seeing as i have become an expert on this crap by accident, i note that windows users also have problems with bluetooth being a number of software libraries and the like, plug and pray time anybody.

Clearly buetooth is not a standard deserving to computer support and it should go back to its ghetto of mobile phone users.  I hope that a better short range radio standard is invented and will make bluetooth devices obselete.

I did get bluetooth to work,but i have no intention of embracing this microsift crapware

Its a shame that inteligent people at Bluetooth have fucked it up.

Indeed i could have bought many adaptors to try but thats not the point why should buying something so basic require so much research. if i had windows then the problem of the right software come to play – not easy for anybody

idiots.

True Blood

not a chicken sexer

Is a Rather Fun tv series that is worth a hunt for.

Based on some books, it mangles american southern,vampires, and other odd stuff together and does it well and throws in some decent sex, and plenty of death.  Morality wise replace vampire for black person and go think on that.

There’s a strong female lead very much modelled on Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica.  The leading men are also interesting, including the j f Sebastian actor from blade runner – and Michele Forbes (who i like) is in series two what she ‘is’  is something i don’t yet know.

Season two is now airing on hbo and while (it appears) a little slow to start and an episode is probably based on chapters lays down some interesting thoughts along the way.

I have not read the Suzi Stuckhouse books, but from the summaries out there the series appears to be true to the ideas of the author – i might be very wrong on that but it seems to be worth the investment.

It is a lot more edgy than Twilight both in the issues it covers and does not go steady.

Hat fashion tips for men

Apparently that works better the experts think.

Sureal moment

British Telecom’s woes are self inflicted

British Telecom is a rather large phone provider for England.  It is a strange organisation and was once a government department run on Stalin like system.

That changed and many now own shares in this government department.  Things change and British India (our nickname for BT in this blog) have changed for the worse with odd customer decisions like ‘phorm’, so there shedding the more ‘expensive’ staff.

Phone quality in the UK is good, but if the staff ring you from India you wonder where the ‘technology quality’ went.  Then there’s the barely english back office staff and maze like routing system when you ring them up means its best not to.

What should be a phone service be ?

1. should it spy on your internet traffic ? to sell adverts
2. be as far away from its customers as it can try to get [globalisation]
3. worry more about music piracy than selling internet

If you think those three are very important then congratulations you have the mindset to run British Telecom.

Inertia is a problem – phones work but for who’s benefit.  Imagine you a famous shop say Ikea – and a BT customer views a web page, BT insert an advert into the layout that says ‘We do it better at shop B’

happy ? after all the customer of BT paid to see that advert (quotas?) and if they go elsewhere if you where Ikea would you be happy about that ?

Now lets get to ’security’ and spying – why not pass your personal data to the security services – if you read about Bin ladin you might be a terrorist after all.

British Telecom are not alone, Orange,Tiscali,Virgin [mr branson],Talk Talk [mr dunstone],Sky [rupert murdoch] also have a significant hate of the clients who pay but there are alternatives there not large companies but there probably a little more customer friendly than those i mentioned.

Self Inflicted – i think best describes BT present position.  Watch out, and not all phone companies are as bad.

0×4001100200001005 and other tales

OK – so what does 0×4001100200001005 mean?

To HP it means ‘bad dvd disk’ in windows vista when restoring Vista from dvd – and just how would bananas know that ?

Well I was asked to fix Vista after an Microsoft update killed the hard disk of a laptop. Fortunately i had made copies of he backup dvd’s for the user before hand, but the user of the machine (not bananas) lost the users contents.

I mean what a piece of crap Vista is (the machine isnt more than 8 months old and it needs a complete Microsoft os reload. HP need to improve there restore program, and should think about being a little more informative about what 0×4001100200001005 means.

The moral of the tale is that Microsoft are not doing themselves any favours, not having a dvd backup of vista and it dies then congratulations your a new Linux user or do you spend a fortune on another of winblows vista since you be have been running an illegal copy right ?.

So how where the dvd’s (two of them )stored ? the backup dvd’s where stored in individual cd sized envelopes both inside a plastic folder. How they became unreadable ? you tell me

TCO (total cost of ownership) is a means in whiich paid for software is deemed to have a better return then evil open source software. Frankly if you have to reload Microsofts paid crap every six months and spend a day trying to guess what the fuck 0×4001100200001005 means then tco is meaningless by microsofts measure since i had only one copy of the bad restore dvd then the only way forward would have been to load linux on the laptop.

After all if the backups dont work, then what else could i have done ?