Rick's World

For those of you interested in Linux and programming, there's a very short blog that found amusing. Its GNOME vs. KDE in 45 words or less.

For those of you who want to learn what Gnome and KDE are, try here:

I like computers. I program them for a living, and I play with them as a hobby, but why do they have to be such a hassle?

In the last several months, I've had the following problems with my computer:

1. Replaced a brand new motherboard twice.
2. Replaced a brand new CPU
3. Replaced a dead 8 port switch
4. Replaced a dead 8 port DSL router
5. Replaced a dead KVM switch
6. Replaced a dead CD burner drive
7. Replaced a dead power supply 3 times

Why does all this stuff have to fail at the same time! Just when I get one thing fixed, something else breaks! I'm getting really tired of spending my evenings fixing the computer, rather than actually using it! Why can't this stuff just work?

Sometimes I wonder how I ended up so differently from the rest of my family.

Every member of my family except me drives a car/truck that is less than 2 years old and probably has less than 30,000 miles on it. Until last month, all three of their cars were Hondas. My mom drives a Honda Oddyssey, my dad drives a Honda CRV and until a month ago, my brother drove a Honda Accord. All 3 cards were bought from the same dealership, and all within a year of each other. A month ago my brother traded in his Accord and bought a Toyota 4Runner. My father is now talking about replacing his 'old' CRV (which probably only has 30,000 miles or so on it). My family seems to be under the impression that once a car's warranty runs out (usually at 36,000 miles), that the car is 'old' and it's time to trade it in for a new one before it gets so old that they won't get much money for it. In the time I've owned one car, my brother has had four cars: 2 pickup trucks, a Honda Accord, and now a Toyota 4Runner.

I drive a 1999 Chevrolet Camaro Z28. It has 111,000 miles on it and has been through 5 accidents (only one was my fault!), but it's still chugging along. It isn't the prettiest car in the world, or in pefect running condition either for that matter, but all things considered, it runs quite well. When I bought this car back in 1999, I financed it for 3 years at 0% interest. I think Chevrolet was desparate to get rid of the Camaros, since they haven't sold well in years. Their loss was my gain. After 3 years of $580/month payments, the car was mine, free and clear. This is a good thing. At the same time, when I bought it, I also paid about $1000 for a 'bumper to bumper' extended warranty for 100,000 miles. I definately got my money's worth out of that warranty. I'm sure that the $1000 I spent for that warranty was a good investment. I would have spent far more than that on repairs to my car, had I not bought this warranty.

For over two and a half years now, I have not had to pay one cent in car payments, and for most of those last 2 1/2 years of financial freedom, my family has been hassling me to buy a new car. I have refused. They think I'm in denial and that my car is going to keel over dead any second now. I will always have a car payment, they say, so I might as well get used to it. I disagree. The way I see it, those last 2 1/2 years of no car payments has already saved me $17,400 in car payments! That's an additional $17,400 in my pocket instead of someone elses. That's almost the cost of an entire car right there!

Americans these days always seem to want the newest, shiniest things. I'm just as guilty of that in many aspects. I'm always buying the latest gadgets for my home (DVD players, iPods, etc.) but these are all small items that are relatively cheap. I'll spend a couple hundres dollars on a new gadget or an upgrade to the latest greatest PC, no problem, but I have a big problem with spending $30,000 just so I can drive a new car and impress all my friends. I don't care about impressing anyone with my car. It runs well, everything for the most part works fine (A/C, stereo, engine etc.). There is something to be said for owning free and clear a car that has 300 horsepower, and has enough acceleration that you are across the intersection before anyone else has even started moving!

I look at all the cars available these days and for any decent car, you are going to be spending $25,000 - $30,000 for a new car, no matter what you get. I've had my eye on the Acura TL for some time now. I want one bad, but I haven't gotten one yet because I don't like the concept of a monthly payment of over $600 for a car! The way I see it, every month that I don't buy a car, I'm saving at least $600. Yes, I may have to spend $500-1000 every 6 months or so on repairs to the Camaro, but it still ends up being a lot cheaper than buying a new car.

I know that at some point the Camaro will die and I'll have to find another car. This day gets closer and closer every day. I have been postponing this day as long as I can because, first of all, despite the fact that my car is old, I still like it. The acceleration is great, the stereo sounds good, the A/C works. I really have nothing to complain about. When this day does come, my plan is to try to buy a decent, late model used car. That way I can cut down on the monthly payment and reduce the inevitable depreciation hit you get whenever you drive a new car off the lot. I also plan to buy another 100,000 mile warranty and drive this new car, until it hits 100,000 miles, probably watching each member of my family cycle through several more cars in the process.

There is no way you are ever going to make money buying a car. It's a losing proposition. The idea is to minimize how much you lose.

It figures. Just when I start to think that Microsoft has finally gotten their act together and produced a stable operating system in Windows XP, they prove me wrong!

In my previous article "A 'Mount'ing problem in Windows", I described a way to mount an external drive to a subdirectory rather than mounting it to a drive letter, as is the standard in Windows. It turns out that this trick can come back and bite you really bad if you aren't very careful.

I had mounted several external drives to subdirectories on one of my computers. These external drives where actually the different card slots on an external memory card reader. The mounting trick worked well in that I was able to access the readers as subdirectories rather than drive letters. It was a little strange seeing the drive icon on a subdirectory, but it worked. Yesterday, I had a problem with the same hard drive that I had mounted these to subdirectories of. I was in the process of moving all the files off this hard drive so I could reformat it. In the process of moving all the files, I inadvertently tried to move these mounted subdirectories. Windows XP did not like this! As soon as it tried to move these mounted subdiretories, Windows proceeded to crash, giving me the infamous Blue Screen of Death and then reboot! This was the first time I've seen one of these BSODs in a long time.

I am not a big fan of Microsoft, yet I use their software because I had little choice. I am a huge fan of Linux, however. Linux has this same capability to mount external drives as subdirectories (in fact that's the only way to do it) and it has never crashed on me! I was grudgingly beginning to admit that Microsoft had improved things.

Thank you, Microsoft, for renewing my lack of faith in you.

Link: http://www.feedster.com

I just found a site sure to blow my RSS bookmarks completely out of control! Take a look at Feedster for more links to RSS sites than you'll ever use! This is perfect for a news junkie like me.

It truly amazes me how the iPod seems to have universal appeal, even with people who could hardly be called computer saavy. I have seen this appeal occur twice already in my family.

My brother owns the 20GB U2 edition of the iPod. He doesn't even like the band, but he liked the look of the iPod over the 'boring' white one, paying a $50 premium to get a different color iPod. He was actually the first person in the family to get an iPod, even before I did (and I'm the computer expert in the family). He originally bought the white 20GB iPod, but later returned it for financial reasons. A few months later, I splurged and bought the 40GB white iPod. This, of course renewed my brothers interest in the iPod and he soon went out and picked up the U2 edition iPod. We both use them for listening to music at the gym and we've also swapped music collections. The hard drive space iPods hold so much stuff that each iPod, both my brother's and I can hold BOTH of our collections with plenty of space to spare! It's amazing how much music you can put on these things! My brother has even gone beyond me on the iPod lust and bought an entire new stereo for his car in order to be able to plug his iPod into his car stereo.

My brother and I have been telling my 62 year old mom all about our iPods and how much we love them. So, my mom asked for one for her birthday. Being the good sons we are, we got her one. We decided on the 1GB iPod Shuffle for her, rather than the hard drive based iPods because she only has a small collection of CDs and wouldn't really need the full blown iPod. Now the iPod Shuffle is still pretty hard to get your hands on these days, seeing as how it is so new and so popular. I ended up having to make a 60 mile round trip one evening to an Apple store in a neighboring city in order to get one. (I actually got one for myself too!) It came in this small box that was bright lime green in color. The box is about the size of a 3 or 4 CD jewel cases stacked on top of each other. I wrapped it and delivered it to her on her birthday. Once we explained what it was, she was very excited about it. I've never seen my mother that excited about a gift in many, many years! She was so excited that she only ripped 2 CDs before she wanted to listen to it! Once these 2 CDs where done, she put on those infamous white headphones, started it up, and happily walked away to return to her quilting. Moments later, a fellow quilting friend of hers called her and she excitedly told her friend that she got an iPod for her birthday! The rest of the evening she wasn't without the white headphones in her ears and the white 'stick of gum' hanging from her neck. Since that day, whenever I've stopped by for a visit, she's there with those white headphones, listening away.

Music has a universal appeal, whether you are a teenager listening to rap, a 62 year old quilter listening to Josh Groban, or a 35 year old Software Engineer listening to rock. The iPod seems to have really struck a cord with people.

I just love the hacker culture of Linux.

No doubt you've heard of Red Hat Linux. They are the number one Linux distribution in the United States. Many people mistakingly think that Red Hat is Linux. They think that Red Hat invented Linux and they are the only company that you can get Linux from. This couldn't be farther from the truth.

What many people don't realize is that anyone can sell Linux. In fact anyone can give away Linux for free, and many do. There are many popular Linux distributions, such as Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, and Slackware to name just a few. I will talk about these other Linux distributions in future articles. What do all these Linux distributions have in common? They are all completely free! If you have an Internet connection and a CD burner, you can download any of these distributions and have an operating system on par, or even surpassing Windows for free.

Another, lesser known Linux distribution is CentOS. CentOS is short for the "Community Enterprise Operating System". What is it? It is a completely free clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a commercial product that costs anywhere from $349 to $2499 per PC! The CentOS team has essentially created a free clone of a commercial product, but the kicker is, this is perfectly legal to do so!

The Linux kernel and most of the software included with the Linux distributions is protected by a license called the GNU General Public License (GPL). One of the provisions of this license is that you are free to use any software bearing this license in any way you see fit. The only condition is that if you make any additions or improvements to the software, you must release these changes to the public so they too can make use of it. This freedom means that there is nothing Red Hat can do to stop someone from copying their distribution. They don't own the code!

The members of the Linux community believe that software should be free. Use it however you want. This is a wonderful thing.

No this isn't an article on Pointy Haired Bosses, but on Managing Windows.

Dave, a good friend of mine recently gave me a great tip on how to easy access a lot of useful information in Windows with only 2 clicks. This is the "Computer Management" feature in Windows. This feature is present in at least Windows 2000 and Windows XP. To get to it, do the following:

1. Right click on 'My Computer'
2. Click on the 'Management' menu item.

This brings up the "Computer Management' application. From here you have immediate access to a wealth of info on your computer. This info includes:

1. Event Viewer
2. Shared Folders
3. Local Users and Groups
4. Performance Logging
5. Device Manager
6. Removable Storage
7. Disk Defragmenter
8. Disk Management
9. Services
10. Microsoft SQL Servers (if installed)
11. Internet Information Services (if installed)

I hope you all find this little tip as useful as I did. Thanks Dave!

Today Apple made several updates to their iPod product line. The changes were as follows:

• Introduced a new 6GB iPod Mini for $249 (formerly the 4GB iPod Mini cost this)
• Lowered the price of the 4GB iPod Mini to $199 (down from $249)
• Added a 30GB iPod Photo for $349
• Dropped the 40GB iPod that was previously at $399)
• Lowered the cost of the 60GB iPod Photo to $449 (down from $599! A $150 drop!)

This means that Apple now literally has an iPod for sale at every price from $100 to $449. Now, if you want an iPod, you can get one, no matter what your price range. The current product line is now:

1. $99 for an iPod Shuffle with 512MB
2. $149 for an iPod Shuffle with 1GB
3. $199 for an iPod Mini with 4GB
4. $249 for an iPod Mini with 6GB
5. $299 for an iPod with 20GB
6. $349 for the U2 Special Edition iPod with 20GB
7. $349 for an iPod Photo with 30GB
8. $449 for an iPod Photo with 60GB

The only gaping hole I see here is the cancellation of the 40GB iPod at $399. I'm surprised they did this. This would have filled a nice notch in their apparent $50 increment price policy.

This appears to be a serious move by Apple to push sales of the iPod Photo. I had heard rumors in the past that the iPod Photo wasn't selling well. This wasn't surprising because all they had was a 60GB version for $499. That's a lot to pay for an iPod. The introduction of the lower priced 30GB version of the iPod Photo and the lowering of the price of the 60GB iPod photo appears to be Apple's answer to this.

This was a very smart move by Apple.

There is a problem brewing with Windows. No it's not a security problem, although there are plenty of those. It's a problem with the rapidly diminishing supply of drive letters.

Now you may be saying to yourself, "How can we ever run out of drive letters? Who in their right mind is gonna put 26 hard drives in their PC?" The problem is not just a matter of having 26 different hard drives. The problem is that everything uses up a drive letter these days! Things such as USB keys, removable hard drives, external memory card readers, and mounted network shares all need a drive letter. For example, my current PC is as follows:

A: Floppy drive
C: Main hard drive
D: Secondary hard drive
E: DVD ROM drive
F: CD Burner drive
G: External hard drive
H: Secure Digital slot on external card reader
I: Memory stick slot on external card reader
J: SmartMedia slot on external card reader
K: Compact Flash slot on external card reader
L: USB thumb drive
M: iPod
N: iPod Shuffle

Add in a few mounted network shares in there and you can see how you could rapidly run out of space. Ever since I started learning about Linux and how it handles drives, I've come to the conclusion that the concept of drive letters on Windows is extremely archaic, poorly designed and bound to become a big issue soon. Fortunately, Microsoft seems to have already come up with a little known solution to this problem.

In the Unix/Linux world, you have the concept of 'mounting' a drive. This means that you basically attach a separate drive on your computer to a subdirectory, rather than a drive letter. This means that in Linux, instead of having multiple drive letters like above, you would have something more like this:

/mnt/floppy: Floppy drive
/mnt/cdrom: First CD ROM
/mnt/cdrom2: Second CD ROM

As you can see, all the drives appear to be located on the same hard drive! This is because Unix connects a drive to a subdirectory, rather than to a drive letter. This is the Unix concept of mounting. Because you can create as many subdirectories as you want, with whatever name you want, there is basically no limit to the number of external drives you can connect. At the same time, they all look like one big drive, so it's an easier concept to understand.

I recently discovered that Windows can do this exact same thing. Windows XP as the ability to mount any drive to a subdirectory instead of the standard drive letters. Here's how you do it:

1. Right click on My Computer
2. Choose the 'Manage' menu option. (Thanks to my friend Dave for this shortcut!)
3. A program will start called 'Computer Management'.
4. Click on the 'Disk Management' item on the left, underneath 'Storage'
5. Right click on the drive in the lower right to change.
6. Choose 'Change Drive Letter and Paths'
7. Click the Add button
8. Select the second option of 'Mount in the following empty NTFS folder'
9. Click the Browse button to select the directory to mount this drive to.
10. Hit the Ok Button
11. Close the Computer Mangement program.

You can now access the device from a subdirectory rather than using up a rare drive letter!

I hope you enjoy this tip and find it useful.