Author Archives: Fordiebianco

Running Ubuntu on mediocre Hardware

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As my lifestyle is rather mobile at present, my main computing tasks are being performed by my Macbook, but recently I inherited an old beige Box from work together with a nifty flat screen LCD monitor that has a nice small footprint. so before throwing it away, I thought I give it a try. After cleaning it and having a rummage around it turns out to be a ca 6 year old KM2M Combo-L Motherboard from MSI, powered by a 1.4 ghz AMD Duron. I upgraded it to 1.2 GB ram and added an oldish Geforce FX 5700 that I still carried around with me, but still, for 2008 the whhole thing is a bit of a stinker.

Next my thoughts turned to the Operating System: it was supposed to have a dual role, on the one hand enabling me to finally finish Morrowind, so I bought the last legit copy of Windows XP my local mum and pop retailer had left (“funny that”, he said. “We have never sold so many copies of XP as in the last 6 months.”) and prepared the one half of the harddisk to be my gaming ‘rig’. Albeit a rather ancient one, but for Morrowind it works beautifully, and as its completely off the net with all connections disabled, it’s probably the safest XP machine in the neighbourhood. But it also should be hooked up to net, print and do some decent wordprocessing  so a more secure option was necessary.

“Use what you know”, so a Debian derivate it needed to be. I previously ran Ubuntu on my last ‘real’ gaming rig, but that was an enormous, up to date thing with quad core cpu and a bloody expensive new GPU, so I was hesitant to try it on this machine with specs from 2003. Nevertheless I am happy to say that Hardy Heron is performing well. Better than I thought, actually.

To check how the dear old Duron was coping with an OS from 2008 and the new breed of ajaxified websites with their rich content and online streaming I had three desktop windows open: Window one ran the resource hogging Open Office,  window 2 had Evolution in all its glory, while Window 3 was filled with Firefox running the BBC’s iplayer, showing me the installment of that weird archaeology show ‘Bonekickers’. The 5 year old beige box performed absolutely flawless. No hickup with the playback on the iplayer, even though the machine connected to the internet via a Asus usb plug-in wifi thingie (that was instantly picked up by Ubuntu and hooked up without any problems to my WPA-2 network). LastFM is playing nicely, printing works out of the box, and my non DRM’d songs on my itunes collection are picked up as well.

I would put the value of this machine at, what, 20? 30? pounds?

Don’t fall for the hype of always buying the latest multicore machines. The only reason I would ever buy a new, ‘pushing the envelope’, PC again is if I wanted to play the latest games on Vista. But as I have a Playstation3 and would rather eat my coffeecup before running Vista I’ll stay with my beige box for now.

Noah’s Ark, Ilford

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Now, I would never, ever try to compete with Russel Davies’s Eggbaconchipsandbeans, but for once in my life I wanted to at least try to emulate the amazing experiences he must have when he sneaks into a new cafe, camera at the ready, poised to picture another perfect plate of food. So, when I had a morning to spend in Ilford (the less exciting East of London’s East End) I found this little gem of a cafe and, wielding my trusty TX1, entered the premises and uttered for the first time the eternal words:

Can I have Eggsbaconchipsandbeans please?

And it worked. After 5 minutes (in which I wanted to write numerous letters to the Daily Mail, as this was the only paper that was lying around) this arrived in front of me (with two enormous slices of fresh buttered bread and a smile)

Now this looks as good as most of Russel’s cafes. The cup of coffee was lovely and fresh, the smiles genuine and the price fair. The beans were desperately clinging to the edge of the plate, not to be pushed into the abyss by the generosity of the cook. The chips were lovely and not too dark, while the bacon made an almost teutonic statement of hegemonical prowess draped over a a third of the porcellain, and only the egg retained a modicum of modesty.

They had more lovely stuff on their menu:

I am now a part of the gobal brotherhood. I will worship in the altar of the greasy spoon as often as my ever expanding waistband will allow me. But I will defintely return to this, my first place of epiphany.

Thanks, Russel.

Noah’s Ark,

10 Chapel Rd
Ilford, IG1 2AG

I have become a complete Whedonite (or is it Jossarian?).

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Ok, that’s it. I am now officially a complete and utter devotee of the man. I am even thinking about buying the whole Buffy set.

Firefly was my first contact with Joss Whedon’s skills as a writer. I was mightily impressed by the wordplay, the puns, the people and the spaceships (even the best girlfriend ever grudgingly admits that Firefly was rather good, and she is certainly no Sci-Fi chick. Nono, Senor, no Star Trek memorabilia in HER house. But that’s beside the point. There is, by the way, nothing wrong with a well placed little figurine when it’s tastefully done. But let’s move on..). And of course the rather good looking cast.

When his Jossiness then pulled off to get Serenity into the cinemas, I secretly started to suspect that the mojo was strong in the dude and that the fuss the interwebs made about was probably deserved.

But this, his latest project is so weirdly, deliciously excellent, that it deserves all the praise this meagre little blog can create. Dr Horrible’s Sing-along blog has just given me the most lovely, enchanting thirty minutes in, er, a VERY long time. After watching act one and two I am already completely hooked and want can’t wait for the final show. Even though obviously done on a ridiculously low budget even for Whedon’s frugal standards, it’s beautifully filmed and has three great leads. Neil Patrick Harris, already mischieviously funny as a semi SS leather clad hero in Starship Troopers is a great lead, believably torn between his evil plans and trying to get the girl. Even the music is pretty good (better than Lloyd-Webber, anyway) and even though the actors are struggling with some of the songs, it’s still enjoyable and not too cheesy.
So, get it on Itunes, watch it live or buy the DVD.

You know you want to.

Absolutely clear!

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Let me make myself absolutely clear:

the continuous use and abuse of the phrase ‘absolutely clear’ is making me absolutely mad. It is of course absolutely clear that if you listen to a news/speech based channel like Radio4 and have to listen to the U.K.’s numerous politicians (especially in the morning) it is very soon clear that the phrase ‘absolutely clear’ is terribly overused in this country. In the years of Tony Blair – remember that? – it was ‘clear’, but since that bumbling, but well meaning technocrat Gordon B. has taken over, it is increasingly clear that ‘absolutely clear’ is now the buzzword of the year. Even Boris ‘Mayor’ Johnston’ has -clearly advised by his scary PR team- started to use the phrase.

What kind of political culture do we have in the U.K. if it’s elected representatives only have a vocabulary limited to 6 catchphrases? The most used ones are surely:

  • “Absolutely Clear”
  • “Going forward”
  • “Public enquiry”
  • “change”
  • “we have got to”
  • “hard working “

Funnily enough, Gordon Brown’s speeches (as evident on his homepage) are actually quite good. It’s just a shame that he is not able to convert his speechwriter’s obvious talent into his radio nterviews.

And by the way: since when has it been ok to say “We have got to..”? The ‘got’ in there is certainly perfectly superfluus and just a little bit reminiscent of American action movies.

Iphone Fever

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There I was, trying to get my morning paper, and then it appeared in front of my eyes: a 100 meter queue in front of an O2 shop.

In Ilford !

Iphone fever must have truly gripped the last corner of the British Isles.