Geek Stuff category archive
Geeking Out 0
Listening to Old Time Radio with Real Player in a Virtual Machine of Windows 7 in VirtualBox on Slackware –Current.
The Snaring Economy 0
You’re on the air at your AirBnB:
Sure enough, when the couple got a closer look, what appeared to be a smoke detector was actually a camera pointing directly at the bed, according to ABC Action News.
Details at the link.
AIMless 0
AOL Instant Messenger will be shut down in December.
I still have an AIM account. Mostly I use the associated email account as a spam trap.
I think the last time I used the instant messenger was in 2008.
Facebook Frolics 0
The Register explains why, in the “social” media industry (and it is an industry, not a service), cluelessness is not a bug; it’s a feature. A snippet:
Of course not. Facebook, like its rival Google, thrives on the income of ignorance and contrition.
To prevent money laundering, financial institutions must comply with know-your-customer laws.
Facebook and Google know everything about their product – the people who use their free services – but as little as possible about everything else, because knowledge goes hand-in-hand with liability.
Facebook Frolics 0
Delusions of grandeur frolics.
There’s a reason I seldom log into Facebook. (When I do, it’s because that, if you want to do reach-out, you must reach out to where the people are).
Facebook as a company–remember, it’s company that desires profit, not a community–is a vortex of [de/il]lusion.
Even as it preys on its users, Facebook pretends that it is a community.
It’s not.
It’s a milking-machine for profit. It’s a really well-designed milking-machine, but a milking-machine that is suckling on your anatomy none the less.
Do not fool yourself into thinking otherwise.
Adventures in Malware 0
I suspect the mope is having second thoughts right about now.
Specifically, Das deliberately introduced malware – seemingly designed to delete files and knacker services – into the US Army Reserve payroll systems after his employers lost the contract to provide the technology. The military estimates it cost $2.6m to fix the damage.
Gaming the Google 0
That seldom works out well.
Geeking Out 0
The Enlightenment v. 21 desktop environment* on Mageia 6.
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*Some contend that E is a window manager. They’re wrong for this reason: Enlightenment configuration is managed using GUI tools, not text configuration files. That lifts it out of the “window manager” category.
Meta: Maintenance 0
My hosting provider has notified me that it will be doing maintenance on my VPS (and, I suspect, numerous other VPSs) starting this evening. The site may be unavailable for short periods over the next 24 hours.
Stray Question 0
Who is Google anyway to presume to tell me what items in my Gmail inbox are “important” and which are not?
Geeking Out 0
Slackware 14.2 with the Window Maker window manager.
Window Maker is the one major *nix window manager I haven’t played with, other than the tiling window managers, which are not to my taste. I’ve used Blackbox (there once was a Blackbox for Windows but the maintainer’s site got hacked and he abandoned the project, but it was a pleasure to use); IceWM; Fluxbox (my favorite window manager); and even TWM, the oldest (some would say “most primitive”) of all.
Window Maker is much more versatile and configurable than I expected. It’s been around for a long time and is still actively supported.
I expect to have fun playing with it.
Afterthought:
Window managers are unknown on Apple and Windows; their default interfaces are “desktop environments.” If the terms puzzle you, this may help.
Geeking Out 0
Slackware 14.2 with the old FVWM desktop environment. Fifteen years ago, FVWM was in vogue because it could be used to make a Linux distro look (sort of) like Windows 95. I’m running Slackware –Current on this here computer, but I have 14.2 in a VirtualBox virtual machine because I’m considering taking another shot at LFS.
Several years ago, I used FVWM for a while on Debian just for fun, but KDE or Enlightenment it’s not.
FVWM is still around and still supported, but not very popular any more.
Afterthought:
I’m using KDE on all three of my computers right now. One is running Magiea, one is running Debian, and one is running Slackware. (I’m a Slacker at heart–Slackware always works and never breaks.)
I guess I’m just a KDE kind of guy.
Make TWUUG Your LUG–Special Pizza Event 0
Learn about the wonderful world of free and open source. Use computers to do what you want, not what someone else wants you to do. Learn how to use GNU/Linux and its plethora of free and open source software to get stuff done with computers.
It’s not hard; it’s just different.
When: Monthly TWUUG meeting at 7:30 p. m. on the first Thursday of the month (September 7, 2017).
There will be no pre-meeting dinner. Free pizza and soft drinks will be supplied for this meeting.
Who: Everyone in TideWater/Hampton Roads with interest in any/all flavors of Unix/Linux. There are no dues or signup requirements. All are welcome.
Where: Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital in Norfolk Training Room (map). (Wireless and wired internet connection available.) Turn right upon entering, then left at the last corridor and look for the open meeting room.
The Power of Google, Reprise 0
Several days ago, I noted Josh Marshall’s musings on Google’s dominance of the Inner Webs and his concern that, with great power comes great temptation to abuse that power.