vybeauregard.net :: news » computing

EYI – Computer Shopping

VYBeauregard — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:07:48 +0000

My catch-all advice for anyone who’s currently in the market for a new computer.

EYI – Top 10 Best Things Of The Decade In The Universe

VYBeauregard — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 01:24:10 +0000

To prove to anyone who said I was completely unable to chase trends, I now present to you: Top 10 Best Things Of The Decade In The Universe.

Norton Anti-Virus = malware

VYBeauregard — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 17:54:52 +0000

So I’m cleaning up two Vista laptops right now. Evidently August is the time to snap them up. In trying to clean off unwanted and annoying pre-installed apps, I noticed that Norton doesn’t really play nice like you would expect a well-respected name in software to.

Uninstalling it on the first laptop didn’t even complete, and after going guerilla-style on it in the registry, it still had some hooks in the OS that prevented AVG from taking over as the system’s anti-virus of choice.

Then I found this helpful tool from Symantec’s website. Hm. Reminds me of Gator from back in the day. Hey, Symantec, if you know your uninstaller doesn’t work, why not include the Norton Removal Tool with your installs? That could have saved me 2 or 3 hours.

On a related note, I still don’t less-than-three Vista. Sure it’s got patches and a service pack update, and as long as you’ve got 2GB of RAM, it doesn’t chug. But power-down modes still suck at the battery, and when I’m booting up, I can’t tell if it’s hung up or just slow. No statusbar or anything: just a black screen.

This is exactly why I turned off quiet mode in Grub.

Flash in 64-bit Environments

VYBeauregard — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:22:49 +0000

Huh. All this time, I thought it was impossible to run Flash in a 64-bit browser running on a 64-bit platform. At least in the Linux world. Then I stumble upon this article, which knocks it all in with three commands. From all the shouting the 64-bit elitists and their flash-hating counterparts were doing, it seems I gave up hope just a bit too soon.

On the upside, I now no longer feel like a jerk for archiving those old sites with their flash content intact. Oh yeah, and I don’t need to reboot anymore to make sure everything is loading properly.

Kubuntu 8.04

VYBeauregard — Tue, 06 May 2008 06:42:34 +0000

Just finished up the system upgrade on the laptop. Now running Hardy Heron in glorious 64-bit wonderment. Still running KDE 3.5, since there’s a lot of instability to be ironed out in KDE 4. This was the easiest upgrade yet on this machine.

Still some housecleaning work to do around the website, but most of that stuff will be user-transparent. Once all that’s squared away, I’ll be ready to go “officially live”, which essentially means I’ll be spamming my url all over God’s green internet.

Just kidding. With all those diesel generators keeping the net’s uptimes in the tens of nines, “green” is probably the least appropriate adjective you could use.