I'm definitely moving to BLOGGER

I had been thinking about it for a long time but somehow I hadn't taken the steps to do it yet; but today is the day!!!

I had my website/blog hosted by weebly for almost two years. I liked it a lot at first. It was easy to use but in time I felt the need to give more prominence to my blog, after all it is the part that is more regularly updated and changed, other more static content does not need much fuss,  you can host it anywhere, anyhow.

Weebly has ease of use, which is fine in today's world where we tend to complicate things unnecessarily. But what I did not like about weebly was:

- Often their servers are way too slow. On a daily basis it takes ages to load my homepage.
- Iceweasel is not supported. At the moment of writing this I primarly use Chromium-browser. Which I do not think it is supported either. But previously I used iceweasel a lot. One thing I can assure you. Noone is ever gonna tell me which software I have to use. And that's the truth.
- I think their DNS servers are buggy or something. In my day to day browsing I get too many navigation errors or "Site not published" messages. After reloading a thousand times the site suddenly appears.
- Blogging features are too poor. You can't search older posts. You have to do it manually.
- Their online editor sucks. I have lost too many hours of my precious time writing and rewriting posts because the editor hungs and I have to start all over again. That makes me sick. Once is enough, but it happens once and again.
- You can't backup your blog.

What I love about blogger:

- Powerful editor with the possibility of having "about me" pages.
- Comments spam detection (I deleted my first attempt at blogging with google because of spam)
- Highly configurable.
- Mail2Blogger (also from mobile devices)
- OpenID
- Google gadgets is not bad although not my cup of tea.
- Stats are great!!!
- Preview option
- You can export/import your blog.

The (will to give) special relevance to the blog came about almost as a matter of chance, as so many things in life. As a grew a regular blogger I felt the need for more powerful features, but when I read Linus' Blog I suddenly realized that we had one thing in common. I quote:

"I sit in my office ... reading and writing email all day."

I also spend long hours reading and writing email, so blogger's feature of "Mail2Blogger" saved my life, or at least a lot of time. Now I do not have to sign in to fight a battle against a hideous online editor. I just have to send an email with my thoughts or my whatever you may call this and press the send button.

I used to think that the web browser was the cornerstone of a computer, but now I'm beginning to think that the mail composer is it. Well times change.

Adding Debian-live to Linux section at chalsattack.com

This text is going to be added at the end of the linux section (See linux tab above) after the Live CD??? paragraph:

Debian-live ???

Talking about live systems I can't help mentioning Debian-live. A personal favourite.

NOTE: Even though the project is geared towards teaching/helping/encouraging users to generate their own images, you can find several standard prebuilt images at their download site.

The Debian-live team produces what probably is the most amazing live system there is out there. Among other reasons because it is based on Debian. The images they create can be copied to Cd's, Dvd's or USB devices such as flash drives or even USB hard disks. These images can also be tried out using virtualization (qemu or vm). The ability to boot from USB devices allows you to try as many images as you please because of the rewritable nature of these drives. I have a 4 GB flash drive exclusively devoted to try Debian-live systems. I do it because they are really useful and secondly for the sake of learning new things.

My reasons for using debian-live systems:

-You can customize the images yourself.

-Images can be used to test hardware.

-Images come in handy as a rescue tool.

-They are nice guys :)

In order to know the project better I recommend you visit their website at  http://live.debian.net/ and in order to master your knowledge of their live system build I insist you read their live-manual at http://live.debian.net/manual/

Here is a list of what you can find in a Debian live system:

- It reflects the (current) state of one distribution.

- It runs on as many architectures as possible.

- It consists of unchanged Debian packages only.

- It does not contain any unofficial packages.

- It uses an unaltered Debian kernel with no additional patches.

If you are interested in contacting the members of the team you can find them:

-Sending a mail to their mailing list at debian-live@lists.debian.org

-On irc in the #debian-live channel on irc.debian.org (OFTC)

Busy eeepc

Can an eeepc 701 4G be any more busy?

First day of Spring!!!

One more...

From caveman to Middle Ages

It goes without saying...

BEFORE:

AFTER:

On why did Facebook kill the msn star

It has been happening for years now but surprisingly enough I had not paid attention to it until last week. There are less and less people connected to the msn (or call it windows live im) service.

I have 83 contacts on amsn but only between 10-15 are online on a daily basis. That was a bit weird but somehow understandable, over the years some people abandon their accounts, some may block you or even delete you. That's life. But so many? No, there had to be a better reason for that.

I began my quest for knowledge on the subject. I asked some people about their msn address but surprisingly enough they told me they didn't have a msn account. However they had  other social networking accounts such as facebook. Then I asked some of my contacts who I met on the street and they told me that since they signed up for facebook or other similar services (like tuenti) they never or hardly ever connected their msn clients. 

How come? Well, I think the reason is easy to understand. Facebook offers you people you may know based on the friends you have and having mutual friends invites you to add more people. You can add a hundred people overnight without any effort. In order to have a contact in msn you have to ask people personally if they want to have you as a friend. Sometimes it is a bit embarrassing.

Installing Debian Squeeze 6.0 on Asus eeepc 701 using a usb stick and Debian-live

In this short tutorial I explain how I installed Debian Squeeze 6.0 on my Asus eeepc 701 4G using a usb stick and Debian-live.

FOREWORD: Formatting drives destroys all data contained there. Before proceeding make sure to backup all important data!!!

In order to follow this tutorial you need:
- A USB stick with Debian Live installed. In order to properly install it you can follow the procedure as explained in the official live-manual
IN SHORT: Download a pre-built image from http://live.debian.net or alternatively build your own. And image it on the usb key using dd.

- An Asus eeepc 701 4G to faithfully reproduce every step. Other models will possibly work much alike.

- Some overall knowledge of how a Debian system works.

STEPS:
1. First plug the usb key in the machine :P

2. Boot the image pressing ESC at the bios splash screen and selecting the usb device from the menu.
3. The first thing to do is to wipe out the contents of the default SSD flash disk as 4G is not enough to dual boot other operating systems. Alternatively you can install this new OS on a memory card (There is a memory card slot on the right side of the computer)
4. Once the default desktop is loaded go to System/Aministration/Synaptic Package Manager

5. Search for and install gparted.

6. Open a terminal. Type sudo su. Start gparted and delete any partitions. BE WARNED that this will erase ALL data. If there is something important in the drive make a backup before proceeding. Have you? Good for you!!! Create a new partition and format it if you want (Formatting is not really necessary at this point since the installer can do it later. What is important here is to prepare a clean partition as a starting point).

7. Once the new partition is ready. Double click the debian installer launcher on  the desktop.

8. Install.
9. Reboot the machine when done and boot into your brand new Debian Squeeze Operating System.
10. ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!

Now, as you can see this is really NOT complicated. If you have ever installed a Debian system following d-i steps is a blast.