You are cordially invited to stuff your faces with yummy junk for charity.

I've been doing a lot of reading about Buddhism lately, as it agrees with what I believe and I would like to follow it. However, it seems I'm going to have to do this on my own.

12 Hours later, and I've finished reading the last installment of the Harry Potter books by JK Rowling - "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"

All right. It has been a while. But... (and this is big) I did it. Vistenstein is alive... And up. And running around, bashing into walls and other funny things.

As head representative of the IT portfolio at my school, I and a few others have been invited to be trained for a Microsoft Security desk at the upcoming Spring Day. The entire event will be sponsored by Microsoft, and to be quite honest it makes me feel dirty.

Remember the days before digital? Before emails and smses, before the internet and messenger? Back when getting in touch with someone meant looking for their address, finding a pen, and envelope and enough stamps, sitting down and spending a few hours agonizing over whether to start with "Dear Geoffrey" or "My darling, dearest, hunnybunnysnugglewunkins" and having to drive your car all the way to the post office to post the letter? It was slow, back then, with those darn square wheels. And the slabs of stone were heavy, weren't they?

SP (my boss) has contacted Mark Shuttleworth with ideas regarding opensource software in Mauritius. Mauritius is known for being a little bit piratey, and the idea of making opensource software prevalent there instead of pirating Window$ software is very appealing.

MyDL is packed with "Facebook SUX" posts these days. I admit it, I'm on Facebook.

I used to check it religiously, every single day. When the school blocked it, I went on anyway using proxy sites.

And then I went to my grandparents' house. They don't have a computer, the internet and barely understand how a Nokia3310 works. It was cold turkey. And to be quite honest, it didn't kill me, and I didn't rush back onto Facebook the moment I got home (and had an ADSL connection).

I just stopped using it.

In fact, I have not used it since Thursday.

And I've never felt better.

So, while it's nice to get in touch with old friends, I really don't see the point and think it's an overrated bandwith hogger.

And as it is taking me more than 24 hours to upgrade my system while my sister sits on Facebook on the other computer, I wish I could convince her of that too.

Fetching the shovel
Sadly, "$ sudo apt-get install shovel" doesn't quite work.

My attempt to recreate Vista on Ubuntu without paying a cent or having to buy extra resources begins with tracking down free, legal software that provides all the same services and funful gadgets. Funful is a word. Yep.

Firstly, Ubuntu itself. You know, one of those glaringly obvious things...

Feisty is what you need (the latest release) and if you have Dapper, like me, upgrading can be a bit of a rectal abrasion. Almost as painful as one-ply hard-grade sandpaper in a public loo.

Typing in the command line, the command $ gksu "update-manager -c" starts the upgrade process by opening a handy update manager that has a lovely little "upgrade" button (that I didn't see for two hours because, erm, I'm trying to make this as idiot proof as possible. Cough).

Simply follow the instructions from there, clicking Yes to everything you need to.

After that, get the following software using the simple Synaptic Package manager (under System, Administration):

• Gaim (so you can use MSN messenger, Gtalk, AIM, and all those other snazzy things like Jabber and Yahoo IM and IRC).
• Beryl to out-do the Aero graphics. Although Feisty comes with most of the nice bits, having the whole package is so much more fun...
  
• Weather Report 2.14.3 for snazzy desktop weather.
• The GIMP for photoshop-like photo editing and animation.
• anything else you find appealing in the software browser. All this software is free and has been approved virus-wise so probably won't break your computer (but don't come crying to me if it does). It is also completely legal. Yes, legal. No piracy here. Arr.
• IRSSI for happy, nerdy IRCing
• Geyes 2.14.3 for mouse location
• Fish 3.4.7.4ac19 to tell your fortune

Sadly, these installs take quite some time (unless you've got the bucks for a phenomenal connection) so I suggest you leave it overnight or go away. See a movie. Eat a pizza. Clear the lint out of your belly button. For instance, this is the download window I am seeing right now:



About 23 hours later: Well, I'm at 1105 of 1193. A while back, it asked me to put in the Feisty CD, which I had handily nearby. It's dark. It's cold, and I think I'm getting the flu. IRC has made the wait a bit less tedious, but I can't take 24 hours of this.

My laptop doesn't need to eat, shower or do anything but sit here and quietly upgrade itself, but I do.


/me disappears in a cloud of purple dust