A week with Ubuntu

Ok geek blog time.

I got an urge, thanks Jeff, to try out a different Operating system on my computer at the end of last month.  I chose to us a Linux Os called ubuntu.   It seemed like it should be easy to install, work with, and would not take up much space.  Everything I read about it also said it will install in a partition on my hard drive shared by XP.  I wanted this option so  I would not have to do a full reload of XP after I was done messing around with ubuntu.  I made plans for an easy experiment with something new. My first mistake was thinking anything I would try would be easy.

I download and burned the install live cd in about 30 mins.  From there it went down hill fast.  I assumed that any cd burning program would work to get the live cd correct. This is wrong.  Imgburn  and Infrarecorder
both burn cd images for live cds and bootable images.  Imgburn does not play well with ubuntu.  I usually use Imgburn.  So the live cd did not work the way it should.  For about 3 hours I loaded, removed, reloaded and fought with the cd  trying to get it to work.  I was going to give up but decided to try burn  a new cd and used the burner on ubuntu's web page, infrarecorder.  Low and behold the cd worked like it was supposed to.  But I still had issues.
The cd gave you the option to run ubuntu like a program or load it onto your computer.  I got the program option to work on the new cd.  I went into unbuntu and looked around.  I found a very easy interface that is very close to windows but did remind me of the old Mac Os I had to use with Holiday Inn's old training programs.  I spent about 30 mins working on the desk top and going to the web.  It seem to be very stable and easy to use.  It was late and so I headed to bed thinking I would add it to the hard drive and try to be able to boot into both Os on the same computer the next day.  Again thinking gets me into trouble everytime.

The next day starts out ok.  I run the install form the live cd and answer all the questions.  Ubuntu said it was done installing, had made a partition on my hard drive and need to reboot without the cd in the cd drive.  I followed the easy instructions and restarted my computer.  Did I say that nothing in this process was easy?   On reboot I get a black log in page asking to boot into Xp or ubuntu. I choose ubuntu and then I get ......
Nothing.
A blank screen flashing cursor and no response from my key board or mouse.  No Xp no ubuntu, no way to do anything.   I reboot and try again.  I know trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results is the definition of insanity.  I now had a computer that would not boot at all.  I restarted it and selected Xp on the boot menu screen.  I also went and got Beth's laptop to get back on the internet looking for help.

I found a great web sight about all things Linux,  Linuxquestion.org.  It has a place for new users and ubuntu.  I joined started a thread and got answers and suggestions very quickly.  I also sent messages to Jeff and Roger on Facebook looking for answers.  Thanks to everyone for the help.  I figured out with these suggestions that ubuntu had decided to install itself on my external hard drive not the internal drive I wanted it to use.  It was decided by those who know more than I that ubuntu did this because the external had a lot more space.  Since the external is a USB drive ubuntu never gets a chance to boot because the computer never sees the drive until after its running.  I disconnect the external and reload ubuntu onto the internal.
All of this takes a couple of hours of messaging, texting and emailing.  I have now made a few new online friends and are feeling a little since of accomplishment. 

Again any little step of progress leads to more problems.  I get into ubuntu and start looking around like I had done the night before in the application version.  My web browser of choice is Firefox.  Ubuntu has a built in version and it work really well in the application version.  It needed my add-on loaded but no big deal.  In the booted version of ubuntu, Firefox would not run.  The system gave me an error of not having enough space to complete the action.  So back to the web on the laptop and looking for more answers.  I now have a dual booting computer that will only surf the web in Xp.

Come to find out that ubuntu needs very little hard drive space to load, 2.3 gigs, but it needs more to actually run any program. Back to Xp and delete the partitions on the hard drive.  Ubuntu is removed and the external hard drive disconnected.  Re load ubuntu giving it 50 gigs to play in and back we go.  Everything goes much easier this time and I am back to a dual booting computer and I can now surf the internet in both Os.   I blame most if not all of these issues on myself.  I did not do enough research and really was not paying attention to everything I was doing.  I now come to the reasons I do not thing I will keep using ubuntu.

The main reasons I wanted to use ubuntu, or any linux Os, were its cost and use of hard drive space.  I have been using it for a week now and I can say the cost is still a plus.  The Os itself does not use a lot of space but the mounting of hard drives and the swapping feature use a lot of memory.  It runs out a virtual memory very fast and I am still not sure why.  The programs I run everyday, Firefox, Thunderbird, Blackberry and Aim etc. all run a little bit differently and seemingly slower because of this.  Add ons for Firefox have crashed Firefox.  Aim just plain does not run.  Converting Thunderbird to ubuntu's client was harder than bringing in Outlook to Thunderbird.   Blackberry does not support any Linux.  I did not even try to play any of my games in ubuntu.

I have decided that with all of the flaws and issues with Windows I know why it is still the most used Os.  It works.  Pure and simple it works.  It is expensive. It takes up a ton of space. Lots of people try to hack it and make viruses to crash it.  But it works. 

Now when does Windows 7 come out?

Good Night all.

Its getting late and its time for bed.  The boys are asleep and I came in 2nd in tonight's poker tourny at Top Notch.  Beth is feeling better and that is a great thing.

I am going to write up  my attempts at running  ubuntu and Xp on my computer but have not got a handle on how I want organize the post.  Thanks to Jeff and Roger and the people at  Linuxquestions.org for helping me to get it loaded.

So have a great night everyone

PS  The Band - The Weight just came up on my LastFm.  What a great song to end the day with

Monday thoughts on Tuesday morning

First day of jury day went ok. Long day with a great deal of sitting and waiting. We started with 45 in the jury pool for a 2 day criminal trail. The Commonwealth attorney and the defense attorney asked us a few questions to determind who they would not want in the pool. This cut us down to 31. It took about 2 hours. I

We then had our 31 numbers, no names just numbers. 13 names were drawn for the jury and the alternate.


The case went fairly fast. Very little questions asked to the witnesses. A lot of lawyers going to the bench to talk to the judge. They have a white noise machine the judge would turn on each time. It was used so we the jury could not hear what they were saying.

At the end of testimony came my let down. Our numbers were put back in the box. My number was pulled out for the 2nd time of the day. I was the alternete. So I had sat through the whole trail listening not forming an opinion waiting for the end. I would not get to make a decision. I was dismissed and left thew court room. I felt so let down.

Today is another day and I head back in at 845.

Everyone have a good day

Weekend thoughts

Mom is up for her long break.  Visiting with the boys and us for the weekend.  Gives us a reason to clean up the house.  The boys of course are driving us crazy because Granny is here.  They have to be the center of her attention the whole time she is here.  As much as moma's boys that they are double it for Granny. 

I have not had a good couple of days trying to load Ubuntu.  For all you out there that like Linux Why do you have to know special key strokes to get into anything?  I was thinking about putting Win 7 on when it comes out next month but decide to try something a little different first with my trusty Xp.  I may just do my biannual install of Xp and keep going until I have to change.  Beth's (She is Darlin by the way) laptop is on Vista and she has gotten used to it.  I can not figure out where anything is on her laptop.  I even had to buy a wireless mouse so that I had something to use when I have to do things on it.

More later.  Go Cats lets make some gator luggage today.

First Day of Jury Duty

I had my first day of jury duty and it was just the orientation and swearing in.  I could not help but think I was in the minority as a person who was both happy and proud to be there.  About 250 of my friends and neighbors were also called for the month of October and not a lot of smiles were to be seen.  The judge did a very good job in giving an impassioned speech about this is not just a duty but a right and we should be proud of the service to our community.  At the end of the orientation he only had a couple of dozen people lined up trying to get of serving.  They gave us the speech about not talking about cases or trying to solve them just to here the facts and decide the case on the merits.  I think this will be my biggest problem will serving.  I will want to ask questions directly of the people to try to figure out what really happened.   There are no capital cases set for next month so that is good. 

Just keeping it short this afternoon.  No baseball tonight because of more rain in central Kentucky.  Mom is coming this weekend and we are working on getting her room, also know as the boys play room, presentable.  Hoping everyone has a good weekend.

CE class today.

I had the in classroom CE insurance class today.  I have my Life, Health, and limited lines licenses in the State of Kentucky.  These are required by the state and my company to sell credit insurance and mortgage insurance.  Every 2 years you have to complete 24 hours of continuing education classes to keep yourself in the good graces of the state.  My 2 classes today were on Errors and Omissions and Ethics.  Neither class has a lot to do with the insurances I sell or even offer.  The instructor was very good and tried very hard to keep everyone interested but 12 hours (6 each course) is just way to long to do this. 

The Errors and Omission class reinforced my general belief that insurance is just legalized gambling.  The Insurance Companies saw that when they denied coverage under a policy because the agent made a mistake, error, or left out something, omission, the customer or their family could sue both the agent and the insurance company.  The insurance companies then came up with a new product to sell to their own agents, E and O coverage, like they were selling to doctors.  They are betting on 2 things not to happen while mitigating the risk to the company having to pay out claims.  The first bet is that a good agent will not make a mistake in handling a policy that is sold.  The second bet is that they can litigate any claim into a settlement for less money than just paying out a large claim.  And that in a nut shell is what insurance is.  They take all their information and bet bad things are not going to happen while taking your bet that they will.   If they think bad things are going to happen then they charge you more to take your bet.  Legalized gambling in all its forms can not stand up to the money insurance companies take in betting that nothing will happen.

The ethics class was much more fun but last about 2 hours to long.  The instructor led us into a discussion on the difference between legal and ethical instead of the normal follow your company's SOP and legal department's rules speech that comes with most business ethics courses.   I enjoyed his discussion about the least respected or trusted occupations in the United States.  The least trusted job is the used car sells man.  The next is an insurance agent.  The idea that both are seen in a bad light because they are seen as liars and crooks.  Both trying to sell you something that you know you need but not sure if you are getting a good deal or not.  The survey he had read from also had a weird follow up question about insurance agents.  People do not trust insurance agents in general but they do trust their insurance agent.  I thought about Congress at this point, with the idea that no one likes what Congress as a whole is doing at any time but they like their Congressman.    People do not like being sold something but if they have a relationship with you then they will listen to your suggestions about what to do with their lives.  He wanted to use this as a reason to get to know your customers so that you can better serve them as well as sell them more insurance. 

A follow up to this discussion was about why do people not trust insurance sells people as well as sells people in general.  The discussion turned to the idea of commission sales and the mistrust people have when they are faced with a hard sell based on commissions.  Most people assume that commission sales will push the sales person to sell the product that gets them the most commission not the best product for the client.  I think the idea of making all agents in the insurance business operate under the same regulations across the country and place them on a fixed salary and bonus program like most employees and get rid of commissions.  This would help with the public image and also allow them to sell insurance to the needs of the people as they should anyway but do not.  Why does insurance have a commission sales payment structure anyway?   Its so that insurance companies can limited their employment costs by have sales people who are not W2 employees but contractors who only get paid when they generate more revenues for the companies. 

I know this was a different blog tonight but I needed to unwind after 12 hours of this dribble today.

Monday Thoughts

Good morning everyone. I hope you all had a good weekend. Ours was just Ok. E had his baseball game but Gman's was canceled because of the UK-UofL football game. E again was very clingy with Beth and I in the dug out. He does better when we are just watching. Man he has my attitude when he gets mad.

Gman enjoyed Boy Scouts Friday night. He got his uniform and likes the neckercheff. I am glad he is enjoying these activities but I think they are getting way out of hand. Baseball, RA, Boys Scouts and the band at Boys and Girls club is starting. An event for every night of the week. No wonder he just wants to veg on the weekends.

Speaking of the band. We got my old trombone out of Granddads attic when we were last home. I can't remember what I did with the mouth piece but it is missing. It has a couple of small dents and needs a little polishing. I hope it will be alright for Gman to use. I do not think we started band at school until 6th grade. Jackie Wayland came in and we did recorders first. Instruments came at the end before we started Junior High. I hope he has more talent than I did. I know he has more rhythm.

I have been summoned for Jury Duty starting Thursday. I am hoping for something interesting. The last time I was called it was for traffic court in Ohio. No trails just sitting around all morning until they got finished pleading out all the cases. The 2 major things we as plain citizens get to do is vote and serve on juries. I hope everyone gets the chance to do both.

Short and sweet have a great week.