Danny's Space

It might have started with a couple of old cans tied with a long string. We sailed the Atlantic ocean using radio waves and broadcast the second world war to the new world. Can we even call it a world war without the spreading influence of radio? Then Mr. A G Bell took the old can and string concept seriously now and invented the telephone, taking connect to a personal and instantaneous level. Personal kasi one individual speaking to another individual, instantaneous kasi it's live. Live in the sense that you respond to it immediately. But then we were responding to each others voice. We were responding to an auditory stimulus. Wouldn't it be good if we could see the person? As it turned out the second world war also produced the cathode ray tube - the television, stupid. Of course the movies were there long before the television but the big difference is that watching a movie in a movie theater is a community experience while watching a television is more personal. So ...

Microsoft finally made a decision about when they will put XP down. They are pulling out support for the operating system and leaving customers with Vista. If you have XP installed now, I don't know until when Microsoft will offer support for it. Everyone has been guessing that XP will get a reprieve but as always they are forcing customers to adopt Vista. Out of fear, loathing and anger about the business practices of Microsoft, I have decided long ago to switch to Linux. I google my way to Linux and found Ubuntu. It has been more than a year since I made the switch more permanent by wiping out XP from the hard drive and installed Ubuntu Linux with (back then) apparent audacity. Installing Ubuntu today is an easier act than installing XP, I did my own installation of XP and reinstalled several times because of malware and other pc problems. Ubuntu comes with a new version every six months, and I do a new install everytime. It gets easier to install Ubuntu everytime. Maybe...

Lots of new things in Hardy. The world clock is simply amazing. It is what I needed. Firefox 3.0 comes pre-loaded with Hardy. I have not tried all the bells and whistle. All for free. Simply amazing really. If people can only try Linux maybe the world of computing will really mean the change we have been waiting for.

I bought two recordable cd's at a friendly CD-r king shop last week. I have to burn the new version of Ubuntu to one of these. I worry about not being able to download right on the day itself. If I go by experience, the Ubuntu servers will again be swamped and traffic will be horrible and slow. So I let April 24 go and started the download the next night at around 12:00am. I had to start the next day again. The download was faulty and I didn't want to gamble on a doubt for such an important download. I used mdsum5 to check the downloaded package on my desktop folder. It remained there for three days until I was sure of the cd burn. The cd burn went fine. Hardy booted and I chose to install it to my hard drive. I also opted to reorganize my hard drive and created another partition for the new Ubuntu version 8.04. Ofcourse the nagging question is what to do with the data and settings to make the migration as smooth as possible. I checked the \home folder because that...

If Microsoft doesn't want us to have XP sp3, there are alternative operating systems available for the desktop. I use Linux with Ubuntu flavor. I happily switched to Linux from Windows XP and I have few regrets and lots of fun learning the Linux way. The first thing I learned is the idea that computing is a community experience. The operating system is being maintained by a community of volunteers. In Ubuntu, these community is backed by a commercial entity which provides commercial support. Ubuntu just released their latest version of Linux last April 24. You can go to any Ubuntu or Linux forum and get answers for your concerns. Linux users must be the most accomodating people in the web.

The oldest living tree in the world was found in Sweden. Scientists said that its roots are 9,550 years old. You would not be impressed by the visible part of it but after using carbon dating techniques on the roots of this Swedish spruce, scientists say they have found the oldest living tree. This photo is from Leif Kullman of the University of Umea.

I said farewell last April 9 to the Prepaid Smart Sampaloc site. I am to begin my training at Parlance in Bel-Air Makati. I started my job at Smart Prepaid last April 2005 and I met a lot of dedicated people there. Since it was my first call center job, I learned a lot from the senior agents and my team leaders. I have several team leaders in the span of my stay there. I have Ms. Azel, Ms. Olga, Ms. Pau, Mr. Ron, Mr. Adonis and Mr. Zak Falmarin whose picture is on the right.